Volume I Part 33 (1/2)

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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 finis.h.i.+ng 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, Somersets.h.i.+re, Worcesters.h.i.+re, and Herefords.h.i.+re. 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]