The Moths of the British Isles Volume I Part 23

Pl. 99.

1, 2. h.o.a.rY FOOTMAN.

3, 4. PIGMY FOOTMAN.

5. DOTTED FOOTMAN.

6, 7. ORANGE FOOTMAN.

{181} Caterpillar, greyish, or greenish grey, freckled with darker, hairs grey inclining to brownish; a broad creamy or yellowish stripe, edged with black and traversed by a dark central line along the back. Head blackish and glossy. From August to June on lichens growing on stems and branches of yew, oak, and beech.

A local species, and although recorded now and then from several other parts of the country, and once from Killarney in Ireland, seems to be pretty much confined to the counties of Surrey, Suss.e.x, Hants, Dorset, and Devon. The moth, which is out in July, rests during the day upon the boughs and among the foliage of oak, beech, and yew, the latter especially in the Dorking district of Surrey.

Distribution: Central Europe, Southern Scandinavia, Livonia, Northern Italy, Roumelia, and Russia.

THE DINGY FOOTMAN (_Lithosia griseola_).

Haworth's English name for this moth was the "Dun Footman." In its typical form the fore wings are pale greyish with a yellowish front edging; the latter most distinct towards the base; the hind wings are whitish ochreous more or less suffused with grey. The pale form, var. _flava_, Haw. = _stramineola_, Doubl. at one time considered a distinct species (the Straw-coloured Footman of Haworth), has pale straw-coloured fore wings and white ochreous hind wings. (Plate 97, Figs. 4, 5.)

Caterpillar, sooty brown, with a darker line down the middle of the back and an interrupted yellow or orange line or stripe on each side of it; dark brown hairs arising from dark warts; head glossy black (described from a skin). It may be looked for in the spring months on the lichens affecting alders and sallows growing in fens and marshy places. (Plate 98, Fig. 2.)

The moth is abundant in the Cambridge and Norfolk fens, and is common in boggy places in the New Forest, but it probably occurs in all suitable places throughout England and Wales. It does not seem to have been observed in Ireland, {182} but has been recorded from Moray in Scotland. The yellow variety, which by the way is not known to occur abroad, is found, with the ordinary form, chiefly in the Norfolk fens and in the New Forest; but it is also to be obtained, though less frequently, in Surrey (Weybridge district), Berks.h.i.+re (Reading district), and still more rarely elsewhere.

It is out in July.

Distribution: Central Europe, South Russia, Ural, Altai, Amurland, Corea, j.a.pan, and West Africa.

THE COMMON FOOTMAN (_Lithosia lurideola_).

Fore wings, leaden grey with a yellow stripe terminating in a point at the tip of the wing; the hind wings are pale ochreous yellow. It appears in July, sometimes at the end of June.

Caterpillar, dark greyish covered with blackish hairs arising from black warts on the back, and yellowish hairs from similar coloured warts on the sides; three black or blackish lines on the back, and an orange stripe along the sides from the fourth to eleventh rings; head black. August to June. Generally supposed to feed, in a state of nature, on lichen growing on trees and bushes. It has been reared on the foliage of sallow, apple, and oak; also known to eat buckthorn, clematis, dogwood, etc. I have occasionally beaten it from old hedgerows, and have frequently seen it on trunks of poplar and ash upon which not much in the way of lichen could be seen. Such caterpillars, when taken, have almost invariably spun up soon afterwards. The moth is shown on Plate 97, Fig. 6, and the early stages on Plate 96, Fig. 2.

This species is perhaps the commonest and most generally distributed member of the genus in England. It becomes much less frequent in northern pasts of Lancas.h.i.+re, and in Yorks.h.i.+re it is local, but recorded as common in the south-east of that county. It occurs in Scotland, whence it has been recorded from Clydesdale, Aberdeens.h.i.+re, and Moray. Kane {183} states that it is common near Galway, and also gives Castle Bellingham, Clogher Head (not rare), and Athlone as Irish localities.

Distributed over Europe, except the extreme north, Andalusia and Southern Italy; the range extending to Asia Minor and Armenia. In Amurland, Corea, and j.a.pan, it is represented by _coreana_, Leech.

THE SCARCE FOOTMAN (_Lithosia complana_).

Very similar in appearance to the last species, the yellow stripe along the front edge of the fore wings, however, does not terminate in a point, but is continued through to the fringes; the hind wings are sometimes distinctly yellow, and with but little, if any, greyish shading on the front area. (Plate 97, Fig. 7.)

Caterpillar, brown or brownish grey above, and paler beneath; a white-edged black line along the middle of the back, and a row of orange spots, alternating with whitish ones, on each side of the line; the orange spots faint or absent on rings one to three; an interrupted yellow or orange stripe along the sides; the brownish warts are thickly studded with short greyish brown hairs. Head black and glossy (described from a skin). From August to June. The most usual food is probably lichens on trees, but it is said to eat moss, knot-gra.s.s, clover, and the flowers of bird's-foot trefoil, etc. (Plate 96, Fig. 3.)

The moth is out in July and part of August, and may be disturbed in the daytime from its resting-place among heather and low herbage. It is on the wing in the dusk of the evening, and when the weather is favourable, flies freely. As it has a weakness for sweets, it should be looked for at night, by the aid of a lantern, on the flowers of knapweed and thistle. It chiefly affects heaths, but it is also found in woods, and on sandhills by the sea, as in Norfolk. A local species, but usually to be more or less frequently met with in all the eastern {184} and southern counties, and in some of the midland. Rare in Wales, Ches.h.i.+re, Lancas.h.i.+re, and York. Only doubtfully recorded from Scotland. In Ireland it is widely distributed, and, according to Kane, not uncommon where it occurs.

THE NORTHERN FOOTMAN (_Lithosia sericea_).

Gregson named and described this insect in 1860, and in the following year Guenee described it as _L. molybdeola_. It seems to be peculiar to England; and only occurs on the mosses of Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re. The fore wings are somewhat narrower and darker in colour than those of the Scarce Footman; and the hind wings are suffused, to a greater or lesser extent, with dark grey. Some entomologists maintain that this is probably only a small form of _L. complana_. According to Mr. Pierce it cannot be specifically separated from that species or from _L. pygmaeola_ by the genitalia, the usual test in such matters. Prout, however, has stated that Speyer, in 1867, pointed out structural differences, not only in the shape of the wings, but also in the size of the costal tuft of scales on the underside of the fore wings. It should be added that there does not seem to be any material difference between the caterpillar of _complana_ and that of _sericea_. Anyway, the question of form or species may here be left open. The fact of the Northern, or Gregson's, Footman being an exclusive British production invests the insect with an importance greatly above that attaching to the majority of our moths. The moth is depicted on Plate 97, Fig. 8.

THE PIGMY FOOTMAN (_Lithosia lutarella_).

Ochreous white, sometimes tinged with greyish, or with yellowish; hind wings clouded with greyish on the front area. Female almost always smaller than the male. The fore wings {185} vary a good deal in the matter of colour, the extremes being yellow and dark grey. (Plate 99, Figs. 3, 4.)

Buckler describes the caterpillar as brown on the back, with a central thick black line, and two dark brown lines; sides paler brown, with a dusty white line along the spiracles; the warts (tubercles) with short brown hairs, and the head black. August to June.

This extremely local little moth was unknown as an inhabitant of Britain until 1847, when it was described as _L. pygmaeola_, by Doubleday in the _Zoologist_ for that year, and noted as having been found among rushes on the coast of Kent. Two years later the insect was again referred to, and it was then stated to be confined to a "s.p.a.ce of about four hundred yards in extent, on the coast of Deal." It then became known as the "Deal Footman."

During the past seventy years or so large numbers have no doubt been removed from this locality, which is the only British one it was known to occur in. It is still to be found there, although said to be less common than formerly. In the _Entomologist_ for September, 1912, this species was recorded as not uncommon on marram gra.s.s growing on the Norfolk coast.

Some present-day entomologists still incline to the opinion that the moth is a distinct species, and not a local race of _lutarella_, which is found throughout Central and Eastern Europe; ranging to South Scandinavia, Finland, and eastward to Siberia and Amurland. The var. _pygmaeola_ has been obtained in Holland.

THE h.o.a.rY FOOTMAN (_Lithosia caniola_).

Fore wings silky whitish grey with a yellowish streak along the front edge; the hind wings are whitish with a faint yellowish tinge. Some of the specimens are entirely whitish (var. _lacteola_, Boisd.). July and August, sometimes earlier. (Plate 99, Figs. 1, 2.) {186}

Caterpillar greyish brown, with a black line along the back, and a series of irregular orange marks, representing stripes, on each side of it; these orange marks are outwardly edged with black; an orange line low down along the sides; warts greyish or brownish, each bearing a tuft of short pale hairs. Head blackish, s.h.i.+ning, notched on the crown, and studded with pale bristles in front. Fed on lettuce from April 30, the date they were received from Mr. Walker of Torquay. They were then quite small, the largest not more than half an inch in length. They pupated in June, and the moths emerged in July, all fine specimens. (Plate 98, Fig. 1.)

In the open the caterpillar feeds upon the black lichens growing on rocks, etc., by the sea; also upon Dutch clover (_Trifolium repens_), kidney vetch (_Anthyllis vulneraria_), and bird's-foot trefoil (_Lotus corniculatus_).

This species was not known to occur in any part of the British Isles until August, 1861, when the late Mr. C. G. Barrett took four specimens on the Hill of Howth in Ireland (_vide Ent. Annual_, 1862, p. 106). A large number were subsequently captured or reared from caterpillars obtained in the same locality by others. Kane ("Cat. Lep. Ireland") remarks that the colony flourished at Howth for many years, but that the species seemingly perished in the severe winters of 1878 or 1879, and unless a specimen taken in 1890 was this species, has not since been seen there. The only other Irish locality from which it has been recorded (August, 1866) is on the coast near Waterford. Torquay, where the species was first observed in 1864 is now a noted locality, and it is said to occur in certain spots along the coast to Babbicombe. Other localities in Devon are Dartmouth, Torcross, and Bolt Head. Barrett found the species rarely in two places by the sea in South Pembrokes.h.i.+re, and mentions Rye in Suss.e.x, and Romney Marsh in Kent, as localities where specimens have occurred.

Mr. J. Walker informs me that the moths fly at dusk, and {187} that they all seem to get active at almost the same moment, and settle again in the same way at the end of their first flight, which lasts about half an hour.

After dark the rays of an acetylene lamp directed downwards into the bushes will attract them from their retreat. Occasionally they visit "sugar."

Abroad this is a southern species, but its range extends to Western Germany, the Tyrol, Switzerland, and South Hungary, as well as to England; also to Asia Minor.

THE ORANGE FOOTMAN (_Lithosia sororcula_).

This moth is orange yellow on the fore wings, and a paler shade of the same colour on the hind wings. Except that the tint is brighter in some specimens and darker in others, there is nothing to mention in the way of aberration. (Plate 99, Figs. 6, 7.)

The caterpillar is white on the back with five black stripes, the outer ones broader than the others; all these stripes are broken up by brownish patches, and they fail to show at all on the eighth ring, which, therefore, is conspicuously white; the sides are smoky grey marked with white on the second and third rings; the warts are reddish, bearing smoky grey hairs. It may be found from July to September on the lichens growing on the trunks of oak trees. The moth does not appear until the following May or June, when it may be beaten from branches. Not uncommon in the woods, chiefly oak, of Norfolk, Suffolk, Ess.e.x, Kent, Surrey, Hamps.h.i.+re, and Dorset; it also occurs in Cambridges.h.i.+re and Suss.e.x. In Berks.h.i.+re and Bucks it is fairly common, but seems to affect the beech woods in those counties. Recorded from Ireland by Birchall, who stated that it was abundant at Killarney.

THE DOTTED FOOTMAN (_Pelosia muscerda_).

The fore wings are pale grey suffused with pale reddish-brown except on the costal area: there are six black dots, two {188} before the middle of the wing and placed above the inner margin, and four beyond the middle in an oblique series from the costa; the hind wings are pale brownish-grey, becoming somewhat darker towards the apex. (Plate 99, Fig. 5.)

Caterpillar velvety blackish-brown, marbled with reddish-grey; stripe along middle of the back, and a line on each side of it deep black; warts and hairs brown, the latter short but numerous; a pair of red spots on ring one, and another pair on ring twelve; beneath the spiracles is a fine reddish-grey line; under surface pinkish grey; head small and blackish (Buckler). So far it has escaped detection in its fenny home, but it has been reared from eggs laid by a captured female. Caterpillars obtained in this way seem to have thrived on a mixed diet of lichens, mosses, and withered leaves of bramble and sallow. August to May. Buckler states that the dark chestnut-brown pupa is enclosed in a double coc.o.o.n, the inner a webby one of greyish silk, and the outer one thinner and composed of white silk. The whole affair was formed in a curled-up bramble leaf. The caterpillar is figured on Plate 98, Fig. 5.

The moth is out in late July and through August. It has been obtained in a certain marshy locality in the New Forest, Hants, and also in some marshes at Sandwich, Kent. Its chief haunts are, however, in the fens of Norfolk, such as those on the river Bure, and Brundall fen on the Yare, but Horning and Ranworth are, perhaps, the headquarters of the species. It may be mentioned that when Stephens wrote about this insect in 1829 only two specimens had then occurred in Britain, and these had been found in a marsh at Horning floating upon the water in a ditch.

Distribution: Central Europe, Denmark, Sweden, Livonia, Dalmatia, Corsica and Sardinia, Amurland and j.a.pan.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Pl. 100.

1. SCARCE MERVEILLE DU JOUR.

2. NUT-TREE TUSSOCK.

3, 4. MILLER MOTH.

5. SYCAMORE MOTH.

6. POPLAR GREY.

7. MARSH DAGGER.

8, 9. ALDER MOTH.

10. DARK DAGGER.

11. GRAY DAGGER.