The Moths of the British Isles, First Series: Comprising the Families Sphingidæ to NoctuidæSouth, Richard
History
The Moths of the British Isles, First Series: Comprising the Families Sphingidæ to Noctuidæ
South, Richard
Lepidoptera -- Great Britain; Moths -- Great Britain
Pl. 14.
1, 1a. BEDSTRAW HAWK-MOTH.
2, 2a. SPURGE HAWK-MOTH.
_Caterpillars and chrysalids._
[Illustration]
Pl. 15.
1. SPURGE HAWK-MOTH.
2. BEDSTRAW HAWK-MOTH.
3. STRIPED HAWK-MOTH.
{37} The moth usually emerges in June or July of the year following
pupation, but it may come out the same year; on the other hand, it has been
known to remain in the chrysalis for two winters. Dr. Chapman has noted the
emergence of the moth eighteen days after the pupa was formed.
Little, if anything, appears to have been known of this species as an
inhabitant of Britain until 1806, when Mr. Raddon, who was staying at
Instow, in N. Devon, had a caterpillar brought to him by a fisherman. From
that time, and up to 1814, a large number of the caterpillars were obtained
from _Euphorbia paralias_ growing on Braunton Burrows, a long stretch of
sandhills on the north Devonshire coast, accessible from Barnstaple or
Ilfracombe, which, when I visited the locality some twenty-five years ago,
was greatly favoured by rabbits. One would suppose that the Spurge Hawk
caterpillars must have been pretty abundant at the time Raddon made his
observations, as he states in a note on the subject published in the
Entomological Magazine for 1835, that on leaving the ground one evening at
dusk he hastily cut an armful of spurge, which he took home and put in
water. Next morning he "found the food covered with not less than a hundred
minute larvæ about a day or two old." This must have happened prior to
1814, because the species seems to have entirely disappeared about that
year. The Rev. E. N. Bloomfield, in his catalogue of the Lepidoptera of
Suffolk, mentions a moth bred from a larva found near Landguard Fort about
1865. He adds that the food plant was then abundant there. At a meeting of
the Entomological Society of London held in October, 1876, a letter was
read from Mr. Higgins concerning the reported finding of the caterpillars
of this species in a locality near Harwich in 1873. It was stated that the
spurge (_Euphorbia paralias_), had not only been {38} seen in the
particular spot, but in other parts of the same district also.
In the _Entomologist_ for 1893 there is a very circumstantial account of
the finding of eighteen or nineteen Spurge Hawk caterpillars on the Cornish
coast in the autumn of 1889. From these, eight moths resulted in May-July,
1890, and one in June, 1891.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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