The head is small, with big prominent eyes that see better by day than most night moths; for Catocala takes precipitate flight at the merest shadow.  The antennae are long, delicate and threadlike, and must be broken very easily in the flight of the moth.  It is nothing unusual to see them with one antenna shorter than the other, half, or entirely gone; and a perfect specimen with both antennae, and all the haif on its shoulders, is rare.  They have a long tongue that uncoils like Lineata, and Celeus, so they are feeders, but not of day, for they never take flight until evening, except when disturbed.  The male is smaller than the female, his fore-wings deeply flushed with darker colour and the back brighter red with more black in the bands.

Neogama, another member of this family, is a degree smaller than Amatrix, but of the same shape.  The fore-wings are covered with broken lines of different colours, the groundwork grey, with gold flushings, the lines and dots of the border very like the Sweetheart’s.  The back wings are pure gold, almost reddish, with dark brownish black bands, and yellow borders.  The top of the abdomen is a grey-gold colour.  Underneath, the markings are nearly the same as Amatrix, but a gold flush suffuses the moth.

There are numbers of these Catocala moths running the colour scheme of-yellow, from pale chrome to umber.  Many shade from light pink through the reds to a dark blood colour.  Then there is a smaller number having brown back wings and with others they are white.

The only way I know to photograph them is to focus on some favourable spot, mark the place your plate covers in length and width, and then do your best to coax your subjects in range.  If they can be persuaded to walk, they will open their wings to a greater or less degree.  A reproduction would do them no sort of justice unless the markings of the back wings show.  It is on account of the gorgeous colourings of these that scientists call the species `afterwings.’

One would suppose that with so many specimens of this beautiful species living with us and swarming the swamp close by, I would be prepared to give their complete life history; but I know less concerning them than any other moths common with us, and all the scientific works I can buy afford little help.  Professional lepidopterists dismiss them with few words.  One would-be authority disposes of the species with half a dozen lines.  You can find at least a hundred Catocala reproduced from museum specimens and their habitat given, in the Holland “Moth Book”, but I fail to learn what I most desire to know:  what these moths feed on; how late they live; how their eggs appear; where they are deposited; which is their caterpillar; what does it eat; and where and how does it pupate.