The Moths of the British Isles Volume Ii Part 8

THE FOUR-SPOTTED (_Acontia_ (_Tarache_) _luctuosa_).

The fore wings of this species (Plate 19, Fig. 10) are sometimes finely powdered with white, but more often the outer marginal area is distinctly flecked with white. The conspicuous central spot is usually white, but occasionally it has a pinkish ochreous tinge; very rarely it is reduced to a narrow streak with a short spur from its outer edge. The white band on the hind wings is sometimes narrowed and contracted below the middle.

The eggs are shown on Plate 23, Fig. 2. They were, when laid on June 17, whity brown marked with reddish brown.

The caterpillar is ochreous greyish inclining to reddish or brownish; three dark-edged stripes along the back, a dark-brown line along the black spiracles, with two finer wavy lines above it; lower down there is a broad stripe of reddish brown; head marked with four lines of black dots. It feeds, at night, during June, July, and August (later in some seasons), on the small bindweed (_Convolvulus arvensis_), and although it will eat the leaves when nearly full grown it prefers the flowers and seeds in its infancy.

The moth appears in May and June, and a second generation in August and September. In the sunshine it is active on the wing, but in dull weather it hides under herbage, in clover fields, chalky slopes, and rough places where its food plant occurs.

The female will often lay her eggs in a chip-box when she is thus secured after capture; the caterpillars are not difficult to rear if flower buds of the bindweed can be obtained to start them upon.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

2 Pl. 20.

1. BEAUTIFUL YELLOW UNDERWING: _caterpillars_.

2. SCARCE-BORDERED STRAW: _caterpillar_.

3. BORDERED STRAW: _caterpillar_.

4. BORDERED SALLOW: _caterpillar_.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

2 Pl. 21.

1, 2. PURPLE MARBLED.

3. SMALL MARBLED.

4. SILVER-BARRED.

5. SILVER HOOK.

6. _THALPOCHARES PAULA_.

7. MARBLED WHITE-SPOT.

8. STRAW DOT.

9. ROSY MARBLED.

10, 11. SMALL PURPLE BARRED.

12. SPOTTED SULPHUR.

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The species is especially common in the south-west of England, chiefly on the coast, but it seems to occur in most suitable localities in nearly all the southern counties, and its range extends to Gloucestershire on the west and to Norfolk on the east. About seventy-five years ago Stephens used to obtain specimens on a chalky ridge near Hertford, and recently the moth has been found at Hitchin in North Hertfordshire.

THE PURPLE MARBLED (_Thalpochares ostrina_).

Two Continental specimens of this little moth are shown on Plate 21, Figs.

1 typical, 2 ab. _carthami_. An example of this species was obtained in June, 1825, in a lane near Bideford, Devonshire, and Stephens refers to this as the only specimen of the species that up to that time (1830) had been noted in England. Nothing more was heard of _T. ostrina_ until 1858, when another Devonshire specimen was taken, this time near Torquay, on June 8, and during the month several others were captured on the coast; two were also secured in the Isle of Wight, and one in Ayrshire, Scotland. In 1865, a specimen was recorded as taken in July a few years previously at Pembrey, South Wales; 1880, one at Dover in September, and one near Swanage; Barrett mentions specimens taken on the Culver Cliffs, Isle of Wight, in 1859.

It seems unquestionable that examples of this species captured in Britain, and also of the other two _Thalpochares_ to be presently referred to, are immigrants, and it is quite conceivable that besides the specimens captured here, others which have escaped detection may also have arrived with them.

The distribution abroad is extensive, embracing South Europe, Turkey, Asia Minor, Egypt, North-west Africa, Madeira, and the Canary Isles. It has also been found in France and Germany, but its occurrence in the latter country has been even less frequent than in England. {56}

THE SMALL MARBLED (_Thalpochares parva_).

This species, of which a foreign example is represented on Plate 21, Fig.

3, has a similar distribution to that of _T. ostrina_, only it does not seem to occur in Madeira or the Canaries, and its eastward range extends to Central and Southern India.

The fore wings are pale reddish ochreous; first line, oblique, dusky, slightly waved on lower half, bordered inwardly with brownish and outwardly with white; second line, dusky and irregular.

The earliest specimen noted in Britain was captured at Teignmouth, South Devon, in July, 1844; another was said to have been captured at Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, but it has been suggested that this specimen might probably be referable to _T. ostrina._ Mr. E. Bankes has a specimen, taken by himself on a salt marsh in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, June 8, 1892. This seems to be all that is definitely known of this species in Britain, but others have been noted from the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man.

_Thalpochares paula._

The fore wings are white, clouded with pale brownish grey beyond the almost straight and rather oblique first line, and also beyond the angulated second line.

Of this species (Plate 21, Fig. 6) a specimen, now in the collection of Mr.

E. R. Bankes, was taken at Freshwater, Isle of Wight, in June, 1872. Two other specimens, one of which seems to have been captured by a boy who was collecting on the south coast, were recorded in 1873; these insects were at that time in the collection of the Rev. H. Burney, and had been caught several years earlier.

The range abroad extends through Europe and Asia to South Siberia. The specimen figured is from Dresden. {57}

THE MARBLED WHITE SPOT (_Hapalotis_ (_Erastria_) _fasciana_).

The ground colour of the fore wings of this species (Plate 21, Fig. 7) is brownish grey, more or less clouded and sometimes suffused with blackish; the white patch on the outer marginal area is, in some examples, much obscured by dark-grey markings, and in occasional specimens the only trace of white on this part of the wing is a thin edging to the second line (ab.

_albilinea_, Haworth).

The caterpillar is pale yellowish, with a greenish, sometimes red, tinged line along the middle of the back, and a brown one on each side; a reddish line under the black spiracles; head, brownish; the raised dots of the body are dusky edged with reddish. It feeds from July to September. A reddish form of this caterpillar has been noted. Buckler, from whose description the above has been condensed, states that the food-plant is blue moor-gra.s.s, or purple melic-gra.s.s (_Molinia caerulea_), and this is confirmed by Bignell, who remarks that in Devonshire he easily finds the caterpillars "feeding about half way up the blades" of this gra.s.s.

The moth is out in June and July, or in forward seasons in late May. It is partial to pine and larch trunks as a resting place during the day, and is local and more or less frequent in most of the southern counties, from Kent to Cornwall, through Somerset and Gloucester (extending into Oxford), to Hereford and Worcester, on the west, and from Ess.e.x to Norfolk on the east.

A specimen was taken at light in Chester in June, 1901.

The range abroad extends to j.a.pan.

THE SILVER BARRED (_Bankia_ (_Erastria_) _argentula_).

In its typical form this species (Plate 21, Fig. 4) has the colour of the fore wings olive brown, but occasionally it is {58} tinged with reddish in some English, and more generally in Irish, specimens. The silvery oblique lines, or bands, vary in width, and sometimes there is a distinct spur from the lower outer edge of the first band.

The caterpillar is yellowish green, with a rather darker green line along the middle of the back, and a yellow one on each side of it. It feeds on gra.s.ses, such as _Poa aquatica_ and _P. Pratensis_, etc., in July and early August.

The moth is out in June, and may be found during the day sitting about on the herbage in its marshy haunts, or flying over the vegetation towards the evening.

The species is exceedingly local in Britain. In ancient times it occurred in Norfolk, but in the present day it seems to be confined to Cambridgeshire, in which county it was first noted rarely in Wicken fen about thirty years ago, but in 1882 it was found plentifully in Chippenham fen, and in that locality (which is a private one) the species still flourishes. In Ireland it is well distributed over co. Kerry, and is especially abundant on the bogs of Killarney.

The range abroad extends to Amurland, where the brownish form var.

_amurula_, Staud., is found.

THE SILVER HOOK (_Hydrelia_ (_Erastria_) _uncula_).

The usually olive brown central area of the fore wings is sometimes reddish tinged, and in fresh specimens the whitish front marginal streak is distinctly rosy; the reniform stigma, which appears to be a spur of the costal streak, is also white or rosy tinged, and sometimes encloses a greyish mark. This stigma is the so-called "hook" to which both the English name and the Latin specific name refer. (Plate 21, Fig. 5.)

The caterpillar feeds in July and early August on sedges (_Carex_) and coa.r.s.e gra.s.ses. It is green, with three lines along the back, the central one rather darker green, and the other two whitish; low down along the sides is a broader yellowish line; the head is green with a yellowish tinge.

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2 Pl. 22.