The Moths of the British Isles, Second Series: Comprising the Families Noctuidæ to HepialidæSouth, Richard
History
The Moths of the British Isles, Second Series: Comprising the Families Noctuidæ to Hepialidæ
South, Richard
Lepidoptera -- Great Britain; Moths -- Great Britain
The caterpillar is brown, inclining to blackish or purplish, the raised
spots are black, and occasionally the sides are freckled with orange (Plate
126, Fig. 2, from a coloured drawing by Mr. A. Sich). It feeds in May and
early June on oak, and will also eat hawthorn, birch, and elm.
The moth, which is out in February and March, appears to be local, but has
a wide distribution through England from Durham to Hampshire, and even
Devonshire. It has also been recorded from Denbighshire, North Wales. A
well-known locality is Richmond Park, in Surrey, and here it is found
resting on oak trunks or on the grass stems, etc., under or around the
trees. The male is attracted by light.
RANNOCH BRINDLED BEAUTY (_Nyssia lapponaria_).
The sexes of this species are shown on Plate 134, where Fig. 3 represents
the male, and Fig. 5 the female. It was not known to occur in the British
Isles until 1871, when a male specimen was captured in Perthshire, on April
20 of that year. Mr. William M. Christy, in 1895, bred some moths from
larvae obtained in the Highlands of Scotland, and he sent eggs to Mr. F. W.
Frohawk, who worked out the life history, and described and figured all the
stages from egg to perfect insect (_Entom._ xxviii. 237). In July, 1900 and
1901, Mr. E. A. Cockayne found {298} caterpillars, in Perthshire (Rannoch
district), on ling, heath, and bog-myrtle; and in June, 1904, he published
(_Entom._ xxxvii. 149) some interesting observations on the habits of the
species in its native haunts. The greenish yellow eggs are laid in batches
of 10 to 150 in the dry corollas of the cross-leaved heath, and less
frequently between the stem and sheath of reeds, or in cracks in dead
bracken stems, etc. The caterpillar (Plate 126, Fig. 3) is pale drab,
inclining to a yellowish tint; irregular yellow stripes along the back and
sides, and lines of blackish streaks between the stripes. It will eat
birch, sallow, and hawthorn, in captivity; but in the open it feeds on
heather and bog-myrtle: May-July. The chrysalis is reddish brown, rather
paler on the wing covers (figured on Plate 126 from a photo, twice natural
size, by Mr. H. Main). The moth is out in April and May, and sits on the
twigs of heather and the stems of bog-myrtle. It has only been recorded
from Perthshire, and is there very local, frequenting damp places near
streams.
Mr. A. W. Mera has obtained hybrids from a crossing of this species with
_N. zonaria_.
BELTED BEAUTY (_Nyssia zonaria_).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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