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 cocoon is spun up among the leaves of the food plant. That figured on
Plate 62, of foreign origin, was on a shoot of bilberry; a moth emerged
from it on April 5, 1907. The first detailed account of this species in
Britain is that in the _Zoologist_ for 1852, in which Mr. Atkinson records
that he took a specimen in May, 1851, at Cannock Chase in Staffordshire. A
year earlier two larvæ were found by Mr. Green on a moor near Sheffield,
and one of these attained the moth state in April, 1851. After this moths
and caterpillars seem to have been taken in varying numbers down to 1896,
when a specimen was captured by Dr. R. Freer of Rugby. Tutt, quoting from a
letter received from Dr. Freer, states that two moths were reared from
three caterpillars found at Cannock in 1898. The only other known British
locality is in the neighbourhood of Lynton, North Devon, where a
caterpillar, which, from the description, must have been this species, was
found in 1864. It was taken on August 3 in a wood abounding with bilberry.
The species ranges over Central Europe, but seems to be generally rare; it
also occurs in Amurland and Japan.
THE LAPPET (_Gastropacha quercifolia_).
Warm reddish brown is the prevailing colour of this fine moth. The wings
are more or less suffused with purplish grey, and crossed by blackish
lines--three on the fore wings and two on the hind wings. Except in the
reddish tinge, which may be bright or dull approaching chocolate, this
species is pretty constant in its coloration. Barrett mentions a specimen
of a light brown colour, and another of a pale buff. The first of these
forms seems to approach the var. _meridionalis_, Staudinger (Tutt), and the
other to var. _ulmifolia_, Heuäcker, which are well known on the Continent.
In certain favourable seasons a second generation of the moth has been
obtained, chiefly perhaps, in confinement, and on the Continent; although
in Britain a caterpillar or two will sometimes feed up and attain the
perfect state the same year they hatch from the egg. These examples, which
are much smaller, but do not otherwise differ from normal specimens, are
referable to var. _hoegei_, Heuäcker.
[Illustration]
Pl. 62.
1, 1a. LAPPET MOTH: _eggs, natural size and enlarged; caterpillar_.
2, 2a. SMALL LAPPET: _caterpillar and cocoon_.
[Illustration]
Pl. 63.
1. SMALL LAPPET MOTH, _male_; 2 _female_.
3. LAPPET MOTH, _male_; 4 _female_.
{127} The moth is figured on Plate 63, and the eggs and caterpillar on
Plate 62.
The eggs, which are whitish in colour with greyish markings, are laid, in
July or early August, in twos, threes, or more, on twigs or the undersides
of leaves of sloe, apple, sallow, hawthorn, etc. A single female moth has
been known to lay over a thousand eggs, but this is perhaps exceptional,
and somewhere about half that number is possibly near the average. Even the
latter would take the moth some time to distribute here and there in small
batches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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