The Moths of the British Isles Volume I Part 33

1, 1a. BRIGHT-LINE BROWN EYE: _caterpillar and chrysalis_.

2. DOT MOTH: _caterpillar_.

3, 3a. BROOM MOTH: _caterpillar and chrysalis_.

4. BRINDLED GREEN MOTH: _egg, natural size and enlarged_.

{257} The caterpillar, which is glossy, and the skin much wrinkled, is of a bronzy-brown colour, with black-edged pale lines; there is a brownish plate on the first ring and a blackish one on the last; the spiracles are black and the head is brownish, marked with darker. It feeds from March to June on gra.s.ses, and in some years and localities occurs in enormous numbers, denuding considerable areas of gra.s.s land. Rooks and other birds devour them readily, and where their feeding places are on hillsides, they are apt to be washed off by heavy rain, so that the drains and ditches become filled up in places by ma.s.ses of these caterpillars. Even after such wholesale destruction, the moths may still appear in the autumn in countless numbers. The male moths are sometimes seen flying in the sunshine and visiting the flowers of thistles, ragwort, etc. Such flight usually takes place between eight a.m. and noon, but both s.e.xes have been seen flying over gra.s.s and heather continuously from just before midday to four p.m. The moths are also on the wing at night, and the male is very susceptible to the attraction of light. The species has occurred in all parts of the British Islands, but its presence in the south of England would appear to be more casual than elsewhere. The range abroad extends through Northern Asia to Siberia.

THE FEATHERED EAR (_Pachetra leucophaea_).

Stephens, in 1829, figured one of two specimens of this species said to have been taken near Bristol in 1816, a part of England {258} from which no other specimen has ever been recorded so far as I am aware. In June, 1855, the late Mr. S. Stevens obtained a few specimens at sugar, at Mickleham, Surrey. Between the year last mentioned and 1894 five other specimens have been recorded from the same county, these are Redhill (W. R. Jeffrey), Boxhill (G. Elisha, a pair, and B. A. Bower), Reigate (R. Adkin). In Kent, specimens have been found in the Folkestone and Tunbridge districts, but the chalk downs between Ashford and Wye appear to be the headquarters of the insect in Britain.

A portrait of a male specimen will be found on Plate 128, Fig. 1, but the ground colour is much whiter in the majority of British specimens.

According to Dr. Chapman, the caterpillar varies from a nearly uniform nankeen-yellow with the markings only indicated, to a handsome larva with distinct black stripes. There is a pale dorsal line, quite narrow; thence to the black spiracles is divided into three longitudinal stripes, a dark dorsal, a dark (but less dark) lower one and a pale intermediate. In all these the ground colour is the same, nankeen-yellow, and the darker areas depend on the greater or less darkness of fine black mottlings, generally in fine wavy streaks running more or less longitudinally. The head is rather brown than yellow, mottled in a honey-comb pattern, with some black marking about the mouth parts. It feeds at night from July to March on various gra.s.ses, but seems to prefer _Poa annua_, and _P. nemoralis_. Dr.

Chapman reared some of these caterpillars by keeping each individual in a separate gla.s.s jar and supplying it at frequent intervals with a fresh tuft of _Poa annua_. The moth is out from May to July, and hides during the day among the tufts of gra.s.s on chalk hills. It comes freely to sugar, and has been taken at privet blossom.

THE SILVER CLOUD (_Xylomania conspicillaris_).

Three forms of this species occur with us. In that represented on Plate 128, Fig. 4, the fore wings are almost entirely {259} blackish. Another has a larger portion of the inner marginal area ochreous brown, or whitish, ab.

_melaleuca_, Vieweg; a third form, and the least frequent, may be described as pale ochreous brown with darker mottling on the basal half, and black central markings representing a broken streak from the base of the wing to the outer margin, in this form the pale outlined stigmata are fairly distinct, and there is a blackish shade between them extending from the front to the inner margin. From chrysalids obtained by digging under oak and elm trees in a private park several miles from Taunton, Somerset, Mr.

H. Doidge (1901) reared moths and obtained eggs which were laid in a batch on the covering of the cage in which the female was placed with a growing plant of bird's-foot trefoil. The eggs hatched on May 31, ten days after they were laid. The young caterpillars were purplish grey, but after feeding on the yellow flowers they a.s.sumed the same colour. "After finishing the flowers they commenced on the leaves, by which time they were a pale green colour, with a yellow spiracular stripe, and were fond of resting by day on the stems of the plant. As they approached the final stage, the green became shaded with brown and black," and then resembled the ripening seed pods. They were afterwards supplied with blackthorn, and did not object to the change of food. They also ate dock (sparingly), and _Trifolium minus_. "About July 8 they began to go under ground to pupate.

The pupae, which were of a dark reddish-brown colour, and somewhat obese and blunt, being enclosed in a very compact and brittle earthy coc.o.o.n"

(Doidge).

The moth is out in April and May, but is very local in England. It has occasionally been found at rest on isolated tree trunks or on posts, but very rarely captured in any other way. Specimens have been obtained from chrysalids dug up now and then from about the roots of trees, but perhaps most of the specimens in collections, not numerous altogether, have been reared from eggs. In England the species is only known {260} to occur in Kent, Surrey, Suffolk, Gloucester, Somersetshire, Worcestershire, and Herefordshire. Barrett also mentions one specimen at Gower, South Wales.

THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHES (_Eumichtis_ (_Hadena_) _satura_).

Of this species (Plate 121, Fig. 5) probably less than a dozen specimens have been taken in England, and apparently none in any other part of the British Isles. It is very similar to some of the darker forms of _E.

adusta_, specimens of which have often been mistaken for examples of the present species and recorded as such. The wings are rather more ample; the reniform and orbicular stigmata are reddish, with a blackish cloud under them, and the s.p.a.ce between the second and submarginal lines towards the inner margin is also reddish. The hind wings are dark in both s.e.xes. The caterpillar, which is said to feed in July and August on hop, honey-suckle, and cherry, among other plants, is pinkish brown, darker above; the dusky-pink central line on the back is interrupted and indistinct, and on each side of it is a series of oblique greyish but not clearly defined streaks; the line low down on the sides is yellow-green. The moths flies in June, July, and August.

Abroad the species occurs in Central and Northern Europe (except the most northern parts, and perhaps Western France); eastward the range extends to Amurland.

THE DARK BROCADE (_Eumichtis_ (_Hadena_) _adusta_).

The s.e.xes of this moth are figured on Plate 121, Figs. 3[male], 4[female].

The ground colour is grey-brown in some examples of this species, whilst in others, especially in the north of England and in Scotland, the colour ranges through rich reddish brown, blackish brown to almost black. In the lighter coloured forms the markings are usually clear and distinct, but in the darker forms are often much obscured. The caterpillar is somewhat variable in colour and markings. Barrett describes one form as pale sage green strongly tinged with ochreous and dusted with greyish brown; the line along the middle of the back is white, interrupted, and edged with greyish brown; a series of outlines of greyish-brown diamonds spread over to the brown margin of the pale ochreous stripe along the whitish spiracles, and form a network on the back and sides. Another form, described by Buckler, has the general colour brilliant yellow, suffused on the upper surface with deep rose pink; a stripe on the middle of the back composed of two darker pink lines, united and forming a spot at the beginning of each segment, and an interrupted yellow stripe on each side. It feeds from July to September on gra.s.s and various low plants, including knot-gra.s.s, bladder campion (_Silene cucubalus_); also sweet gale, sallow, etc. The moth flies in June and July, sometimes in May. The species occurs in woods and on heaths and moors, and is generally distributed, and more or less common throughout the British Isles. The range abroad extends to Amurland.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Pl. 130.

1. SLENDER BRINDLE: _caterpillar_.

2, 2a. CLOUDED BRINDLE: _caterpillar and chrysalis_.

3. LYCHNIS: _caterpillar_.

4. CLOUDED BORDERED BRINDLE: _caterpillar_.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Pl. 131.

1, 2. LARGE NUTMEG MOTH.

3, 4. CONFUSED MOTH.

5, 6. CRESCENT STRIPED MOTH.

7, 8. DUSKY BROCADE MOTH.

{261} THE BRINDLED GREEN (_Eumichtis_ (_Hadena_) _protea_).

Green of some shade is often the prevailing colour in the much ornamented moth portrayed on Plate 122, Figs. 11, 12; but in some specimens the general colour is pinkish white. The variegation consists of reddish brown or pinkish, and white clouds and black streaks, chiefly as edging to the pale cross lines, or between the stigmata; these latter are as often obscure as distinct, but sometimes the orbicular is white with a white mark below it extending to the black bar connecting the first and second cross lines.

The caterpillar is green freckled with yellow, with a yellow central line on the back; head brownish. It feeds from March to June, and when it leaves the egg it bores into an oak bud to {262} feed; later on it spins the young leaves together, and finally it dispenses with a retreat altogether and feeds openly on the leaves. The moth is out in the autumn, rather earlier in Scotland. It is widely distributed in England, and in some seasons and localities very abundant. In Scotland it is found from Roxburgh to Moray, and in the latter county as well as in Perthshire and Argyll it is often plentiful. Single specimens have been recorded from Ireland, and these from Co. Galway and Co. Westmeath.

THE NORTHERN ARCHES (_Crymodes exulis_).

The specimens of this species shown on Plate 123, Figs. 1, 4, are from Shetland, and more or less of the typical form, but rather more variegated, perhaps, than the actual type. In other specimens from the same locality the yellowish submarginal line is band-like; or the ground colour is browner, and sometimes blackish. These blackish examples approach var.

_a.s.similis_, Doubleday (Fig. 3), from Perthshire, where it was first met with, at Rannoch, by Weaver, over sixty years ago. _Exulis_ (The Exile) was discovered by Mr. H. McArthur in the Shetlands in 1883. In 1896 Mr. P. M.

Bright captured a specimen in the Shetlands which Barrett considered referable to _maillardi_, Hubn. (Geyer, Fig. 833.) "Its ground colour is drab-brown, abundantly marked with umberous and dusted with black, and its only conspicuous marking is the reniform stigma, which is distinctly edged with white in such a manner as to give it a singular resemblance to _Mamestra_ [_Barathra_] _bra.s.sicae_." Staudinger, it may be added, adopts _maillardi_ as the earlier name for this species, and it may have to be generally accepted. The caterpillar is ochreous whitish, shaded with grey, and with yellowish plates on the first and last rings; spiracles black, head reddish brown. It feeds on gra.s.ses from August to May, but is sometimes two, or even three, years in completing its {263} growth. When young, and also later, it eats the lower part of the stem and partly into the root of the gra.s.s. The moth is out in July and August. Very few examples of the _a.s.similis_ form have been obtained, and these only in Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, Inverness, and the Isle of Arran. Mr. W. M.

Christy captured one specimen in Ross-shire in August, 1902. The geographical range of this species extends from the Alps and Pyrenees through Norway and Lapland to Iceland, Greenland, and Labrador.

THE MINOR SHOULDER-KNOT (_Bombycia viminalis_).

Figs. 5 and 6 on Plate 125 represent the typical form of this species. Fig.

8 shows the blackish var. _obscura_, Staud., and Fig. 7 an intermediate form. The pale form is most frequent in southern England, and dark forms are commoner in the north. Both forms occur in Scotland, but in some parts the pale form only is found. The caterpillar is green with three whitish lines on the back; the raised spots are also whitish; the line along the black spiracles is yellowish. It feeds from April to June on sallow and willow; at first on the terminal shoots, the leaves of which are spun together with silk. Later on the caterpillar folds down or rolls a leaf so as to form a shelter. The moth is on the wing in June and July, sometimes later, and is pretty widely distributed throughout the British Isles, but is rather local in Scotland, northern England, and Ireland. The dark form, it may be mentioned, does not seem to be found abroad. The range of the species extends to Amurland.

THE DUSKY SALLOW (_Eremobia ochroleuca_).

This brownish tinged ochreous moth (Plate 126, Figs. 3, 4) has the fore wings crossed by whitish lines, the first and second of which approach or unite below the middle, dividing into two blotches the dark central band-like shade. {264}

The caterpillar, which feeds on the seeds of c.o.c.k's-foot (_Dactylis_) and other kinds of gra.s.s from May to early July, is whitish green and glossy; three whitish stripes on the back, the central one broadest; a stripe below the black spiracles is whitish, edged above with green. Mullein (_Verbasc.u.m_) has also been mentioned as eaten by this caterpillar. The moth is out in July and in August, and may often be seen resting on the flowers of knapweed (_Centaurea_) in the daytime. It flies at night, and has been taken at the flowers of centaurea, ragwort, etc., and at light. In some districts it is said to visit the sugar patch, but not to do so in other localities. Occurs in the chalk districts of most southern English counties, and especially those of Kent and Suss.e.x; also, but only rarely, in Warwickshire and Yorkshire. One specimen has been recorded from Pembrokeshire in Wales.

THE ORACHE MOTH (_Trachea atriplicis_).

In the past this greenish-mottled brownish moth (Plate 126, Fig. 5) appears to have been commoner, and more widely distributed in England than it now is. Wilkes, in 1773, referring to it as "The Wild Arrach," states that it was taken occasionally near London. At the present time the species seems to occur only in the eastern counties, and chiefly in Cambridgeshire. In June, 1904 and 1905, specimens (three in all) were obtained at sugar in Huntingdonshire. The caterpillar is ochreous or reddish brown, dotted with white; three dark lines on the back, the central one only distinct. A yellowish stripe along the black-edged white spiracles; head light reddish brown, glossy. It feeds in July and August on orach (_Atriplex_), persicaria, knot-gra.s.s, and will also eat dock. The range abroad extends to Amurland, Corea, and j.a.pan.

NOTE.--It may be mentioned here that _Prodenia littoralis_, Boisd., an inhabitant of tropical and sub-tropical regions, has {265} been occasionally reared in this country from caterpillars found in imported tomatoes.

THE SAXON (_Lith.o.m.oea_ (_Hyppa_) _rectilinea_).

The brownish clouding, and reddish-brown central band, of this species (Plate 126, Figs. 6, 7) varies in tone; sometimes the band is olive grey and the clouding rather grey than brown. The caterpillar, according to Buckler, varies from dark brown to chestnut, ochreous, and orange browns; the spiracular stripe pale ochreous or cream colour, shading off in the middle to grey brown. It feeds from July to September, or later, on sallow, bramble, bearberry (_Arctostaphylos uva-ursi_), and will eat knot-gra.s.s. It hibernates when full grown, and pupates in the following spring. The moth is out in May, June, or July, and is taken at sugar, chiefly in woods. At one time it was found in Yorkshire, but c.u.mberland seems to be the only English county in which it now occurs. In Scotland it has been taken in the south. Renton states that near Hawick, Roxburghshire, he finds a few at raspberry blossom every year. It is more plentiful, however, from Perthshire to Sutherland. Kane notes it from Torc Wood, Killarney, near Galway, and Clonbrock; and that the form is identical with that from Aberdeen named _semivirgata_, Tutt. The range abroad extends to Siberia and Amurland; and the North American, _xylinoides_, Guen, seems to be a form of the present species.

THE FIGURE OF EIGHT MOTH (_Diloba caeruleocephala_).

The greyish-centred white marks are the chief features on the brownish fore wings of this moth (Plate 127, Figs. 1, 2). The first one, or both when quite apart, is very like the figure 8; sometimes these marks are united, and form an irregular blotch. Rarely the area between the black lines is dark and the marks {266} obscured or absent. The caterpillar (Plate 133, Fig. 1) is bluish grey, with a number of bristle-bearing black spots and minute black dots; a stripe along the back is yellow and interrupted; a yellow stripe low down along the sides. It feeds, from April to June, on hawthorn, sloe, and wild crab; also on the leaves of apple, plum, and other fruit trees. Sometimes these caterpillars are to be seen on the hedges in numbers, and usually seem to prefer the outer extremities of the longer shoots. The pale purplish brown chrysalis is enclosed in a strong somewhat oval coc.o.o.n, which is covered with fragments of litter, and often attached to some object, such as a bit of stick, leaves, etc., on the ground. The moth is out in October and November, but is rarely seen, except occasionally at gas lamps, etc. Generally common in the south and east of England, and widely distributed throughout the rest of the country to c.u.mberland. It has occurred in a few Clydesdale localities, and has been recorded by Renton as sometimes common in Roxburghshire. Widely distributed in Ireland, but not often plentiful.

THE GREEN BRINDLED DOT (_Valeria oleagina_).

Nearly eighty years ago Stephens summed up all that was known of this species in Britain. As there is nothing to add in the way of later records, his remarks may be quoted. "Very rare; specimens have been found in Richmond Park, and one was taken in the pupa state by Mr. Plastead some twenty or thirty years ago in Battersea Fields; others have occurred near Bristol, and Mr. Donovan, I believe, captured one in South Wales; it has also been taken in Scotland. My specimens were from the former locality, and I have been fortunate enough to have had nearly a dozen examples at various periods." Most of the later authors mention only the Welsh specimen, taken at Fishguard in Pembrokeshire, July, 1800. A continental specimen is shown on Plate 127, Fig. 5. {267}

THE BEAUTIFUL GOTHIC (_Heliophobus hispidus_).

This species (Plate 127, Figs. 6, 7) varies in the brown colour of the fore wings, which is sometimes of a greyish tint; not infrequently the pale cross lines are tinged with brownish, or they may be rather broad, and, the submarginal especially, white and very distinct; the reniform and orbicular marks are sometimes tinged with pink. The caterpillar (Plate 133, Fig. 3) is pale rusty brown, with blackish markings, and three pale lines on the back; head glossy and rather paler than the body, and marked with two blackish lines. It feeds on gra.s.ses from September to March. The specimen figured (slightly enlarged) was received from Mr. Walker of Torquay on January 11, 1907. The chrysalis (Fig. 3A) is dull reddish, ring divisions and wing-cases paler and brighter; two hooks on last ring. The moth is out from the latter part of August to early October, and in its haunts, which are cliffs by the sea, it may be found at night sitting on gra.s.s stems. It is not known to visit flowers or the sugar patch, but has been taken at light. Although previously taken in the Isle of Portland, the earliest published record was that in the _Zoologist_ for 1849 of a specimen taken on the sandhills at Exmouth, late in September. It still occurs at Portland and at Swanage in Dorset; also in the Isle of Wight and along the Devon coast to Cornwall. The range abroad is restricted, the species only being noted from Southern France, North-east and Southern Spain, Sicily, Palestine, and North-west Africa.