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
The glossy white moth, prettily marked with orange and black, shown on
Plate 33, was not known to inhabit the British Isles until 1858 when
Bonchard obtained one specimen in a large birch wood in the Killarney
district, Ireland; in the following year he took a second specimen. Both
captures were made in the month of June. In June, 1861, one example of the
moth was found in Burnt Wood, Staffordshire; and in the same wood, June,
1865, no fewer than six specimens were secured, and eggs obtained from one
of the females. The caterpillars duly hatched out, but most of them were
lost, only seven attaining the moth state. Kane states that in 1866 a
specimen was taken in Mucross demesne, and caterpillars "were said also to
have been beaten." Miss Vernon of Clontarf showed him her collection of
insects from Kerry, and he found therein two rather poor specimens of the
White Prominent from a new locality in Kerry. Barrett mentions the capture,
in 1880, of a specimen near Exeter, Devonshire. From the foregoing, which
comprises all that appears to be definitely known about British _L.
bicoloria_, it will be gathered that the species is not only very local,
but exceedingly rare.
The caterpillar, figured on Plate 32, from a coloured drawing by Mr. A.
Sich, is pale yellowish green, rather whiter on the upper surface; the
lines are green, the central one darkest; the stripe along the spiracles is
yellow edged with green. It feeds on birch in July; and changes in due
course to a dark reddish brown chrysalis, which is enclosed in a compact
silken cocoon spun up between leaves. The moth emerges in May or June.
Abroad the species seems to be generally distributed in Central Europe, and
is also found in the Ural, Amurland, Ussuri, and Japan. {76}
THE MAPLE PROMINENT (_Lophopteryx cuculla_).
To Donovan and the entomologists of his time this moth (Plate 33, Fig. 4)
was known by the English name still in use, Stephens considered it a rare
insect, and remarks that he once caught a specimen at Darenth Wood, by
"mothing," in June, 1820; several other examples had been taken in the same
place, and in the neighbouring woods. Although many more localities are now
known for the moth, it still continues to be rather a scarce species. It
appears to inhabit woods on a chalky soil almost exclusively, and is found
less uncommonly in the woods of Buckinghamshire than in its other haunts in
Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Kent, Sussex, Devonshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire,
Suffolk, and Norfolk. The bulk of the specimens in collections were
probably reared from the egg, or from caterpillars obtained by beating or
searching the maple bushes growing in the woods frequented by the moth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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