The wings are works of art.  The front are a rich olive brown, marked the long way in the middle by a wide band of buff, shading to lighter buff at the base.  They are edged from the costa to where they meet the back wings, with a line of almost equal width of darker buff, the lower edge touched with white.  Beginning at the base, and running an equal distance apart from the costa to this line, are fine markings of white, even and clear as if laid on with a ruler.

The surprise comes in the back wings, that show almost entirely when the moth is poised before a flower.  These have a small triangle of the rich dark brown, and a band of the same at the lower edge, with a finish of olive, and a fine line of white as a marginal decoration.  Crossing each back wing is a broad band of lovely pink of deeper shade than the colour on the sides.  This pink, combined with the olive, dark browns, and white lining, makes the colour scheme of peculiar richness.

Its antennae are long, clubbed, and touched with white at the tips.  The legs and body are tan colour.  The undersides of the wings are the same as the upper, but the markings of brown and buffish pink show through in lighter colour, while the white lining resembles rows of tan ridges beneath.  Its body is covered with silky hairs, longest on the shoulders, and at the base of the wings.

The eggs of the moth are laid on apple, plum, or woodbine leaves, or on grape, currant, gooseberry, chickweed or dock.  During May and June around old log cabins in the country, with gardens that contain many of these vines and bushes, and orchards of bloom where the others can be foundthe Lined Evening Lover deposits her eggs.

The caterpillars emerge in about six days.  The tiny ovoid eggs are a greenish yellow.  The youngsters are pale green, and have small horns.  After a month spent in eating, and skin casting, the full-grown caterpillar is over two inches long, and as a rule a light green.  There are on each segment black patches, that have a touch of orange, and on that a hint of yellow.  The horn increases with the growth of the caterpillar, can be moved at will, and seems as if it were a vicious `stinger.’  But there is no sting, or any other method of self-defence, unless the habit of raising the head and throwing it from side to side could be so considered.  With many people, this movement, combined with the sharp horn, is enough, but as is true of most caterpillars, they are perfectly harmless.  Some moth historians record a mustard yellow caterpillar of this family, and I remember having seen some that answer the description; but all I ever have known to be Lineata were green.

The pupae are nearly two inches long and are tan coloured.  They usually are found in the ground in freedom, or deep under old logs among a mass of leaves spun together.  In captivity the caterpillars seem to thrive best on a diet of purslane, and they pupate perfectly on dry sand in boxes.