The species was observed in several English counties during August and September, 1911; and again in 1915. In 1917 it seems to have been more widely spread over our islands, as specimens were reported from Ireland and even Shetland.
Plants with tubular flowers, such as those of petunias, and the sweet-scented white tobacco (Nicotiana affinis) are its especial favourites, but it also visits the blossoms of pentstemon, geranium (chiefly the scarlet variety), etc. It does not settle on the flowers but inserts its long "tongue" into the tubes as it hovers on the wing in front of them. Just at twilight it commences operations, but it may be seen pursuing its investigations well on into the night (see Fig. 1, p. 2).
Distributed over Europe, Asia, and Africa.
A specimen of the female sex is figured on Plate12. The white clouding or mottling on the pale brown colour of the fore wings varies in intensity and is sometimes tinged with pink, especially at the base of the wings; often it is only noticeable at the tips of the wings and on the outer area; the blackish suffusion from the inner margin through the central area and the black streaks between the veins are rather more constant. On the hind wings the pinkish tinge between the black bands may be faint or entirely absent; the central black band varies in width, and is sometimes so much expanded that it absorbs the basal half of the first band.
When full grown the caterpillar measures about three inches in length and has a very substantial appearance. It is of a pretty green colour, with seven oblique white stripes, each of which has a purplish front edging; the spiracles are yellowish. The head is rather more grass green and marked with black in front. The curved horn is blackish on the upper side and yellowish below. The colour of the caterpillar in its younger stage is yellowish, due to the presence of yellow dots, it also has some tiny hairs; the horn, which is bristly and slightly forked at the tip, is a conspicuous feature at this age on account of its length and dark colour as compared with that of the creature itself. Just before changing into the chrysalis, a brownish tinge is assumed, and very rarely caterpillars of a pinkish or purplish tint have been found.
It feeds on privet (Ligustrum vulgare) in July and August; often to be seen resting on the upper part of the longer sprays of the food plant. Sometimes a dozen or more may be found on one short strip of privet hedge. They are much subject to the attack of ichneumons. Other food plants are lilac, ash, lauristinus, and some other shrubs. Mr. Step informs me that onAugust 18, 1907, he found three larvæ feeding on teasel at Ashtead.
The caterpillar will burrow some depth underground before constructing its pupal chamber. The chrysalis, which is reddish, or blackish-brown in colour, is figured with the other stages on Plate13.
The moth usually emerges the following June or July, but there are at least two records of its remaining in the chrysalis during two winters.
The southern portion of England appears to be the principal British home of this moth. It is more or less scarce in the midlands and northwards. In Scotland it has only been recorded from southern counties, and in his "Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of Ireland," Kane states that he has no certain record of its occurrence in that country. Widely distributed through central and southern Europe, extending northwards to south Sweden and Finland, and eastwards to Amurland, China, and Japan.
Stephens, writing of this species in 1828, remarked that about thirty years before that date, a specimen "was taken in June at Colney Hatch Wood, and a second in the neighbourhood of Esher." He also gives Rivelston Wood, near Edinburgh, as a locality, on the authority of Dr. Leach. A specimen was stated to have been seen in Cumberland in 1827 or 1828, and up to the year 1877 four other examples were reported, each from a different part of England. In the year last mentioned a specimen was recorded from Woodbridge, Suffolk, as taken in a rectory garden the previous midsummer (since ascertained that the moth was first seen there in 1875); an example was also found at rest on a tree trunk at Tuddenham, near Ipswich, in July, 1877, and one was reared on August 5, 1876, from achrysalis found near Horham Rectory, Wickham Market, Suffolk. In 1878-9, caterpillars were met with at Leiston, Suffolk; the moth was found in the pine woods around Aldeburgh, 1881, and as many as forty specimens were taken in July and August, 1882, and rather more than twenty in August, 1919. In 1895, Lord Rendlesham, when driving through the fir woods in the neighbourhood of Woodbridge, noted two specimens in almost the same spot where he had taken some moths in 1892-93. Mr. F. Mellusson, writing from this district (August 2, 1895), stated that fifteen specimens had been taken, and that others could have been captured; also that about one hundred larvæ were then feeding in confinement. He also mentioned that 1895 was the fourth year out of five that the insect had occurred there. A male moth was found at rest on an oak trunk near Southwold, Suffolk, on July 29, 1900. On August 13, 1906, the Rev. A. P. Waller saw a worn specimen on a pine trunk in the rectory garden at Woodbridge. He also noted a pupa on September 30, 1917. (Plate12, Fig. 2.)
The mature caterpillar, which feeds on pine needles, is green, with a yellowish-edged reddish line along the middle of the back and a creamy line on each side of this; the interrupted line below the reddish spiracles is yellowish or ochreous. Head yellowish brown; horn blackish brown; both are glossy. It enters the earth and there turns to a reddish brown chrysalis; this is rather glossy, somewhat darker above than below, and appearing blackish between the rings; the rough "tongue" sheath is short and attached throughout to the case; the tail spike is roughened, and has a blunt point on each side of it (Plate11, Figs. 3, 3a).
It has been recorded that caterpillars hatched from the egg early in August, pupated in October, and the moths emerged the following May-July.
The perfect insect sits upon tree trunks, chiefly pine, often well within reach, although sometimes its position is fourteen orfifteen feet up the trunk. At night it visits flowers, and seems to be most partial to those of the honeysuckle.
Suffolk seems to be the British home of this species, but odd specimens have been reported since 1860 from Romsey, Hampshire; Hinton St. George, Somersetshire; Herefordshire; Isle of Mull (two caterpillars); and Bournemouth.
The range of this species is through Northern and Central Europe southwards to Northern Spain and Italy, and eastward to the Caucasus. In Japan it is represented by var.caligineus, Butler, which differs but little from typicalpinastri.
The fore wings are pale grey, more or less tinged with pinkish and marked with olive at the base, towards the middle of front margin, and a tapered band running from the inner margin to the tip of the wing; the lower part of the basal patch is blackish. Hind wings pinkish with black basal patch and a band before the outer margin; a white patch at anal angle (Plate15, Fig. 1).
The caterpillar feeds, August and September, on spurge (Euphorbia paralias, andE. cyparissias). When full grown the head is crimson red, marked on the crown with black; the body is black, but so thickly sprinkled with yellow dots that much of the black colour is obscured; the larger spots are often crimson, but sometimes they are yellow, or even cream coloured; the stripes along the back and below the yellow spiracles are crimson, as also are the legs and feet; the spiny horn is crimson with a black tip. In a younger stage the head and the horn are orange, the latter black tipped; the body is yellow with patches of black around the paler yellow spots on the back. Chrysalis pale brownish, minutely dotted with black; the head and thorax are marked with blackish, and the rings of the body have narrow, interrupted, blackish bands; the wing and antennæ cases are covered with fine short blackish streaks; tail spike blackish, somewhat flattened, and the acute point black (Plate1, Fig. 1;14, Figs. 2, 2a).
Plate 14
Plate 15
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 fromEuphorbia paraliasgrowing 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 beenseen in the particular spot, but in other parts of the same district also.
In theEntomologistfor 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.
Although the occurrence of the moth in Britain has been more frequently recorded, probably in error for the Bedstraw Hawk, there are at least two that are undoubtedly authentic. One of these refers to a specimen taken in a private garden near Southampton (Entom., 1872), and the other was captured by the late Mr. C. G. Barrett as it flew at early dusk in a garden at King's Lynn, Norfolk, in September, 1887. Some idea of the scarcity ofbonâ fideEnglish specimens may be gained from the fact that about thirteen years ago, two of Raddon's bred specimens were sold by auction at Stevens, when six guineas was given for one, and ten shillings more for the other.
Its distribution abroad extends through Central and Southern Europe into Asia Minor, and it is represented by local races in other parts of Asia.
On Plate15, Fig. 2, will be found a portrait of this moth, which the ancient fathers of British entomology dubbed the "Spotted Elephant"—at least, Harris, in 1778, figured its caterpillar under this name. Later it was called the "Galium Hawk-moth." The olive-brown fore wings have a tapered, creamy-white stripe running obliquely from the inner margin near the base to the tip of the wing; the lower edge of this stripe is almost straight, but the upper edge is irregular; the outer margin of the wings is greyish. Hind wings creamywhite, the basal area and a band before the outer margin black; the space enclosed is blotched, and sometimes tinged with pinkish red; but the extreme inner portion is almost pure white. Head and thorax are olive-brown, edged with white; the abdomen is olive-brown, with a whitish line along the middle of the back, and ornamented with black and white on the sides.
The full-grown caterpillar varies in colour from greenish olive to pale olive-brown, reddish brown, or sometimes blackish; the spots on the back are yellowish, edged with black, but occasionally these are absent. It feeds in August and September, on the bedstraws (Galium verum,G. mollugo, etc.), preferring the yellow-flowered kind that flourishes on sandhills by the sea (G. verum, var.maritimum). It can be reared very well on willow herb (Epilobium) and on fuchsia.
When ready for the change it burrows underground, and, where the soil is sandy and light, it works down pretty deeply before making the frail cell, in which it turns to a reddish-brown chrysalis with blackish markings, somewhat similar to those of the next species; the anal spike is blackish, rather flattened, terminating in a sharp point (Plate14, Figs. 1, 1a). Haworth in 1812 mentioned caterpillars from Devonshire, and although single specimens of the moth seem to have been taken here and there in various years between that date and 1854, in only one year during that period was it reported from several parts of the country. This was in 1834, when four moths were captured in August, and eight or nine others seen at Yarmouth; caterpillars were also found on the bedstraw growing on the Denes. Odd examples of the moth were observed that year in Lincolnshire, Somersetshire, and in the Isle of Wight. In 1855-56, caterpillars were obtained in August on the sandhills at Deal, and, in September, at Devonport in the first-named year. A moth was taken in May, 1857, and, later in that year, specimens were captured at Deal,Brighton, and Taunton. Three moths were recorded in 1858; and in 1859 caterpillars were plentiful on the south-east coast, common on the Cheshire coast, also reported from Devon, Cambs., London, and Darlington; over a score were found within a short distance of Perth. A good many moths were also taken. The species was especially abundant in 1870, in which year caterpillars were collected in hundreds. It seems to have been widely distributed throughout England, and was again found in Perthshire. Perhaps not more than three specimens were taken between 1872 and 1888, but in the rainy and cold summer of the latter year, the moths seem to have invaded the country in great force, and were reported from many parts of England, and also from Aberdeen in Scotland, and from Howth in Ireland. Caterpillars, too, were plentiful on the coast sandhills of Kent, Cheshire, and Lancashire, and also in the Eastern Counties.
In March, 1889, Mr. Elisha had moths emerge from chrysalids of the previous year. These had been placed in a temperature ranging from 60 to 70 degrees, and the moths came out in from fourteen to sixteen days after commencing the forcing process. Some half a dozen chrysalids that I had in 1888, from Lancashire caterpillars, were allowed to remain in the earth, which was contained in a large-sized flower-pot; the moths emerged in May and June, 1889, all but one being perfect specimens.
In 1894 Mr. Harwood obtained five caterpillars on the Essex coast, and in 1897 the Rev. A. Miles Moss found a few, and observed traces of others, on the Lancashire coast, but, apart from these records, very few moths or caterpillars of this species appear to have been noted in the country since 1888, and we still await the advent of anotherGaliiyear. So far the periods of scarcity between the seasons of plenty have been twenty-five, eleven, and nineteen years.
The range of this insect extends through Europe and Asia toSiberia and Amurland. It is represented in North America by the Galium Sphinx (Celerio intermedia, Kirby =chamænerii, Harris), which so greatly resembles it that only an expert could readily distinguish one from the other.
Owing to some confusion between this moth (Plate15, Fig. 3) and the North American Striped Morning Sphinx (D. lineata), which also seems to have had a place in the cabinets of the earlier British entomologists, the localities given by authors previous to 1828 are doubtful. Haworth, however, in 1803, mentions Cornwall, and Stephens, in his remarks on this species, refers to a specimen from Norfolk; one taken off the mast of the Ramsgate steam vessel at Billingsgate, in June, 1824; and three specimens, one of which he figured, captured near Kingsbridge, Devonshire.
In 1846 thirteen of these moths were recorded from various parts of England and Ireland, and probably many others were in these islands that year. Between May 12 and 26, 1860, twenty specimens were taken in the south of England, and more than half of them in Devonshire. In 1862 a specimen occurred at Worthing on April 16, and one at Herne Hill on April 29; others were taken between May 2 and May 18 on the south and south-west coasts, and at Colchester. Over a score of specimens were recorded in 1868, chiefly in August, and from localities ranging from Cornwall to Yorkshire. The year 1870 was a good one for the species, and moths were reported from England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. Fully fifty specimens were obtained, mostly in May, and caterpillars were also found. In 1904 the moth occurred in May, at several places in the south and south-west of England, also in Gloucestershire, Wales, and at Carlisle; in September of this year a specimen was taken on the pier at Dover, and another on a smallheadland at Barry, in Glamorgan. Some of the early captured females deposited eggs; caterpillars resulting therefrom were fed on vine, and at least one moth was reared in September.
A good many specimens visited the south of England, more particularly South Devon, in June, 1906, but the species was reported as occurring in large numbers on rhododendron blossom near Cork in Ireland from June 9 to 13 or 14. In August and September the moth was reported from Kent, Sussex, Hants, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, and South Wales; such specimens probably being the offspring of the early immigrants. During the past forty years the barren seasons for the Striped Hawk appear to have been only ten. The dates of its occurrence have been somewhat erratic. One was captured in 1887 in the month of February, one on March 27 in 1903, but the moth has been observed in each month from May to September inclusive, although May, June, and August would seem to have been the more favoured. The caterpillar has not been seen often in England. Mr. Farn recorded six or seven from Ryde in July, 1870; they were feeding on vine and centaury in a garden. One spun up in the leaves at the bottom of the box on July 27, but the web was so fragile that the caterpillar fell out, and changed to the chrysalis state on the 30th. The moth emerged on August 26. In the same year several caterpillars occurred in Devon and Cornwall, and one of these was found on July 11 in a mangold-wurtzel field in the Exeter district. It was afterwards reared on fuchsia, and produced a moth on August 18. Nine others were reported from a nursery garden at Plymouth; they were fed up on dock—the plant upon which they had been found—and the moth was reared later in the year. In 1902 Mr. Jäger received a caterpillar from Starcross about July 20, and this attained the moth state on September 27. A caterpillar, believed to be of this species, was found in a sunny garden at Lewes in Sussex, July 20, 1906.
According to Hellins the eggs are light green in colour, and the caterpillars hatch out in about three weeks. When it first emerges from the egg-shell the caterpillar is dirty white without spots, and the head and horn are black. The adult is dark green or black dotted with yellow; three yellow lines on the back and two rows of black-ringed yellow spots, with some black spots above them; each yellow spot is tinged with pink on the upper portion. Head black, marked with yellow; horn reddish, with the tip black. Sometimes the rings of the body are banded.
It feeds in June and July on vine, fuchsia, dock, and probably other plants. It may be noted that the foliage of house vines are stated to be unsuitable food. The blossoms of numerous plants are visited by the moths in the evening, among which are delphinium, petunia, honeysuckle, tobacco, rhododendron, valerian, and silene.
In the daytime it has been found resting on walls, windows, and also the curtains; on grass turf, railway metals, fences, and on plants and shrubs.
The distribution of this species is somewhat similar to that of the Silver-striped Hawk-moth, but it extends into Western China and is represented in North America.
Referring to this species in 1828 Stephens wrote: "The first recorded specimen of the perfect insect was taken flying in Bunhill-fields burying-ground so long ago as 1779: and the specimen now exists in a high state of preservation in Mr. Haworth's collection, having been purchased by him at the dispersion of that of Mr. Francillon. Subsequently to the above capture the larvæ have been found several times in Cambridgeshire.... Two or three were also taken about fifteenor sixteen years since in a garden at Norwich, and were kept until they changed to pupæ; but unfortunately, in that state their metamorphosis ended. One of these pupæ I have in my collection. Of late, however, the perfect insect has occurred more than once, and in totally different parts of the country. Three specimens, as I am informed by the Rev. F. W. Hope, were taken near Oxford several years ago. In August, 1826, an injured one was found resting on a wall near Birmingham; and last summer a second was secured not far distant from the same locality; the latter I have in my possession. Again, Mr. Marshall informed me in March last, that, on his way to Manchester, he met with an individual who possessed upwards of a dozen living pupæ, which were procured from larvæ found in that neighbourhood during last season."
Humphrey and Westwood mention a specimen taken in Brighton in 1834, and in 1846 eight moths were obtained. Something like one hundred and twenty-five specimens of this species have been recorded between the year last quoted and the present time. Of these only one occurred in Ireland. This was a specimen taken at light on September 17, 1881, at Mullaghmore, County Sligo. Several were captured in Scotland, and one in Wales; but the bulk were obtained at various places in England, not in the south only but in the north also. The majority were met with in the autumn, but a specimen was reported as taken in May, 1848, at Harlestone, another in March, 1862, at Tooting, and a third in the Isle of Anglesea, July, 1865. In the last-named year nine specimens were captured in the autumn. Doubleday recorded a caterpillar found in a garden at Epping (October, 1867), and other caterpillars have been reported from Newmarket and Sussex.
At least one example of the moth has been recorded almost annually since 1846, but captures seem to have been more numerous in 1861, 1866, 1870, 1879, 1881, and especially so in 1885. The caterpillar (figured on Plate1) varies in ground colour, which may be pale brown, dark brown, or green. There is a black line along the middle of the back, and a pinkish brown stripe on each side; the latter runs from the ring next the head to the horn, but is interrupted on ring four, and the back from this ring to the horn is covered with linear dots arranged in more or less regular rows; the underside is thickly sprinkled with black-ringed white dots; on each side of ring four there is a conspicuous oval mark made up of a blackish outer ring, an inner ring of yellowish, and one of reddish; the centre is blackish, with some yellowish dots upon it. Head small, pale brown; horn blackish and rather rough.
Plate 16
Plate 17
It feeds on vine (Vitis vinifera) and yellow bedstraw (Galium verum); also on fuchsia and virginia-creeper (Ampelopsis). August and September are given as months for this caterpillar, but the Newmarket and Epping examples referred to were taken in October.
The moth seems to visit us chiefly in September and October. It does not appear to have been so often taken at flowers as at light, or when resting by day, on a wall or window of a dwelling house or shop, to which it had been attracted at night by the illumination within. The species has a wide range through Africa and Southern Asia to Java, Borneo, and Australia. In Europe it is perhaps only native in southern parts; thence it sometimes wanders through Central Europe to Germany and Holland. The specimens visiting our islands may come from the latter country, or possibly in years of comparative plenty the moths come to usviâthe west coast of Europe.
The forewings of this handsome moth (Plate16) are pinkish grey, marbled with various shades of green and olive brown; some of the marbling edged with white. Hind wings greyishbrown shaded with greenish, with a whitish, waved cross line. The colours of the head, thorax, and body are similar to those of the wings.
Fig. 18.Fig. 18.Chrysalis of Oleander-Moth.(Photo by W. J. Lucas.)
Fig. 18.
Chrysalis of Oleander-Moth.
(Photo by W. J. Lucas.)
The caterpillar feeds on the Oleander (Nerium oleander), and also on the lesser periwinkle (Vinca minor). When full grown it is olive green on the back from the hinder part of the third ring to the small, rough, and drooping, horn; the under surface and the whole of the first three rings ochreous; there is a divided brown spot on the ring nearest the head (first thoracic segment), and two larger blue-black spots on the third ring. These spots each enclose two whitish clouds; on the front edge of rings five to nine (second to sixth abdominal segments) are whitish dots, but these are fewer on rings eight and nine than on the others; a narrow whitish stripe, edged above and below with whitish dots, runs along the sides from ring five to the horn; spiracles are black with pale margins (Plate1).
Chrysalis brown with blackish central line, which becomes broken and obscure on the body rings, broken again on the head, but continued thence along the under surface to the tips of the wing cases. The spiracles are blackish; the body is dotted, and the last rings are clouded with blackish.
I have only seen a preserved example of this caterpillar and a dead chrysalis; descriptions of each are from these.
The first published notification of the occurrence of this mothin England is that of Stephens in 1835. He wrote: "A noble specimen of this remarkably beautiful insect (five inches three lines in expanse), was taken in the beginning of September, 1833, by a lady in her drawing-room at Dover. Whether the pupa had been imported in some of the numerous packages of foreign fruits, etc., or the insect itself had been brought over in one of the passage-vessels, is a question not easily solved. The larva feeds upon an exotic plant; but has been found in a garden near Charmouth, as appears by a subsequent communication to theEnt. Magazineby Captain Blomer."
The next record of the moth appears in theZoologistfor 1852. "On the 11th of September a specimen ofChærocampa neriiwas taken in Montpelier Road, Brighton, by a young gentleman at school, while it was hovering over a passion flower." Two caterpillars were found in a garden at Eastbourne, feeding upon the leaves of potato, in October, 1859. In confinement they ate periwinkle, but they were not reared. The following records are, except where otherwise stated, of single specimens of the moth: Hastings, August 2, 1862; Sheffield, September 14, 1867; St. Leonards, October, 1868 (? 2 examples); Ascot, June, 1873; Lewes, September 3, 1874; Hemel Hempstead, October 15, 1876; Tottenham, Middlesex, Eastbourne, Sussex, and Blandford, Dorset, September, 1884; Hartlepool and Prestwich, July, 1885; Brighton, September 7, 1886; Poplar, September 20, 1888; Dartmouth, September 26, 1890; Stowling, Kent, July, 1896; Yalding, Kent, September 18, Teignmouth, October 23, 1900; Banhead, Scotland, end September, 1901; Liverpool, in a steamship, and Atherstone, Warwickshire, October, 1903; Eastbourne, July 14, 1904; Lancaster, September 18, 1906. A specimen ofDaphnis hypothous, Cramer, a native of India, Borneo, Java, and Ceylon, was captured at Crieff, Perthshire, in July, 1873, and was recorded asD. nerii, and the error was not rectified until 1891.
It will be seen from the above that the moth is exceedinglyrare in these islands. The species is an inhabitant of Africa, and its normal range extends along both sides of the Mediterranean through Asia Minor and Syria to India. In Europe, north of the Alps, the moth is seldom observed, and it is probably almost as scarce on most of the Continent as it is with us.
The fore wings of this hawk-moth are ochreous with a faint olive tinge; the front margin is edged and blotched with pinkish, and there is a broad but irregular band of the same colour on the outer margin. Hind wings blackish on upper margin, pinkish on outer margin, and ochreous tinged with olive between; fringes chequered whitish, sometimes tinged with pink. Head, thorax, and body pinkish, more or less variegated with olive; the thorax has a patch of white hairs above the base of the wings (Plate19, Figs. 3, 4).
In most specimens there are at least traces of two cross-lines in the fore wings, the space between these is sometimes brownish olive; the outer border of the hind wings varies in tint, and may be purplish. Occasionally the ground colour of the fore wings is greenish olive.
A hybrid, resulting from a pairing betweenChærocampa elpenorandMetopsilus porcellushas been namedelpenorcellus(Staud).
The egg is a rich full green and rather glossy; it is laid in June on yellow bedstraw and other kinds ofGalium.
A full-grown caterpillar will measure quite two inches in length, and in general appearance is not unlike that of the next species. It is, however, greyish brown in colour, merging into yellowish brown on the front rings. The head is greyer than the body; the usual Sphingid horn is absent, and in its place there is a double wart. When quite young the caterpillar is pale greyish green with blackish bristles, and the head and under surface are yellowish.
Plate 18
Plate 19
It feeds, at night, in August and September, on bedstraw growing in dry places. It will eat almost any sort ofGalium; also willow herb (Epilobium), and purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria).
The chrysalis is pale ochreous brown sprinkled with darker brown; the wing cases and the ring divisions are also darker. The body rings are furnished with reddish hooks. It is enclosed in a cocoon similar to that of the Elephant, and usually is on the ground. The early stages are figured in Plate18.
The moth, which chiefly affects drier localities than the next species, is on the wing in May and June in the south of England, and June and July in the north. It has a weakness for the flowers of honeysuckle, and spur-valerian (Centranthus), but will take toll in the way of sweets wherever found, even from the sugar patches of the nocturnal collector. Except that it does not appear frequently in the Midlands, the species seems to be widely distributed throughout the country. In Scotland its range extends to Perthshire and Aberdeen; and in Ireland it is found all over the island, and is fairly plentiful in some localities, but especially attached to the coast.
Abroad, its distribution covers nearly the whole of Europe, and eastward to north-eastern Asia Minor, Bithynia, and the Altai.
The fore wings are olive brown with two pinkish lines, both shaded with dark olive brown; the first is rather broader than the second, and terminates just above the centre of the wing and near a white dot; the second line runs from the white inner margin to the tip of the wing, and the area beyond it is flushed with pinkish; there is a black mark at the base of the wings and the fringes are pinkish. The hind wings are black on thebasal half and pinkish on the outer half; fringes white. The head, thorax, and body are olive brown marked with pinkish, the thorax being additionally ornamented with white on the sides. The moth is shown on Plate19, and the early stages on Plate17.
The eggs are whitish-green in colour and rather glossy. Those I had were laid in June on a leaf of willow herb (Epilobium).
When newly hatched the caterpillar is yellowish white, and paler between the rings; the head is tinged with greenish, and the horn is black. The full-grown caterpillar measures nearly three inches in length, and is rather plump. It is blackish or brownish grey, thickly sprinkled with black dots on the back and more sparingly on the sides; the spiracles are ochreous ringed with blackish, and below them is an ochreous line, which is most distinct on the front rings; on each side of the third to fifth rings there is a round black spot, the second and third pairs enclosing black centred whitish lunules which are sometimes tinged with pink or yellow; the horn is much of the same colour as the body. There is a green form of this caterpillar.
It feeds, chiefly, at night, in July and August, onEpilobium hirsutumand on bedstraw especially the kind (G. palustre), growing by the side of brooks and streams. The chrysalis is palish brown freckled with darker brown, the divisions between the rings and the spiked tail appearing blackish; enclosed in a cocoon formed of earth and sundry fragments of stalks, leaves, etc., spun together with silk and generally on the ground, but sometimes just under the surface.
The moth is on the wing in June, and very occasionally there is a late summer emergence. It does not fly until dusk, and may then be seen hovering over the blossoms of honeysuckle, etc. It is also known to be attracted now and then to "sugared" trees. The best plan, however, for obtaining a few fine specimensis to rear them from eggs or caterpillars. The latter are said to come up to sun themselves about four o'clock in the afternoon, but they may be found at any time in their season, and in likely spots, by turning back the herbage and looking for them in their hiding-places. When in repose the head and front rings are drawn inwards, and this distends the eyed rings, thus bringing these into prominence and giving the creature a rather wicked look, from which the uninitiated would be likely to retreat. The caterpillar, however, is quite harmless, and may be handled with impunity.
Although somewhat scarce in the more northern counties, this is a pretty common species throughout most of England and Wales. Its range extends into Scotland as far as Dumbarton, and, according to Barrett, along the east coast to Aberdeen. Kane states that in Ireland it is met with everywhere and is abundant in some localities. Distributed over Europe, except the more northern parts, and extending through Asia to Japan.
The brown fore wings with black cross lines, and the brownish bordered orange hind wings, at once separate this from any other hawk-moth occurring in our islands. Its greenish eggs are laid on bedstraw, and in July and August the caterpillars may be found on the same kind of plant. They are greenish or brownish covered with white dots; a whitish line runs along each side of the back and a yellowish one lower down on the sides; the spiracles are blackish, and the horn bluish shading into yellow at the tip. The yellow-flowering bedstraw (Galium verum) seems to be the kind upon which the caterpillar is most often found, but it also occurs on the hedge bedstraw (G. mollugo). It has been known to eat wild madder (Rubia peregrina), and isstated to thrive in confinement on goose-grass or cleavers (G. aparine). When full grown a loosely woven cocoon is formed on the ground beneath the food plant, or other herbage, and therein the caterpillar changes to an ochreous grey or brownish chrysalis. This is marked with darker brown on the wing covers and around the spiracles; the "tongue" case forms a small beak-like projection.
Like the Bee Hawks, referred to presently, the moth is a day flyer, and delights in the sunshine, although it has been several times seen on the wing quite late in the evening, and has also been observed hovering in front of flowers and probing them with its long "tongue" even in the pouring rain. Blossoms of very many plants, both wild and cultivated, seem to receive its attention, but it is perhaps most partial to those of the jasmine where available. In the south of Europe the species is generally abundant throughout the year; but there would seem to be at least two distinct broods, one appearing in June, and the other in October. Possibly there may be an intermediate brood in August, as the period from egg to moth is known to be less than two months. In the British Isles, so far as one can gather from the records, caterpillars have only been found in July and August. Single specimens of the moth have been seen in the earliest months of the year, as for example, January 31, 1898 (Bath), January 3, 1899 (S. Wales), February 2, 1900 (London); it has also been observed several times in December. These facts and others connected with this species in Britain certainly lend colour to the oft-repeated statement that the moth hibernates in this country. The insect is known to enter houses, and to examine holes and cracks in walls, dry banks, etc., in the autumn. Mr. J. P. Barrett, in a note, written in November or December, 1900, states that six or seven moths came into his house at Margate in October, and that one was still hidden in his bedroom. However, if it be granted that the moth does hibernate here, the instances are so rare and isolated that, unless such specimens are impregnated females, the chances of these reproducing their kind the following year are not great. We have, therefore, to fall back upon immigration as the probable source of the Humming-Bird Hawk-moth in Britain. Except the more northern portion, this species is distributed over the whole of the Palæarctic region, including India, China, Corea, and Japan.
Plate 20
Plate 21
We have but two kinds of Bee Hawk-moths in our islands, and the present species (Plate21, Figs. 2, 3) is easily recognized by the broad reddish brown borders of the wings and especially those on the front pair, which also have a black bar at the end of the cell. When freshly emerged the wings are not clear and transparent, but covered with greenish-grey scales, which are so loosely attached that they are lost after the moth's first flight.
The egg is bright green, and is laid on the underside of a leaf of honeysuckle. When very young the caterpillar is yellowish white, but when full grown (Plate20, Fig. 2) it is whitish green on the back, green on the sides, and reddish brown beneath. Along the middle of the back there is a darker, much interrupted, green line and a yellow line on each side of it; the spiracles are reddish, the head is dark green, and the horn reddish brown merging into violet at the base, and brown at the tip. Sometimes there are blotches of reddish brown on the sides. When quite mature and ready to assume the chrysalis stage the caterpillar changes in colour to purplish brown. At all times it is difficult to detect, as its colour and markings agree so well with the stems, stalks, and leaves of the food plant. If a leaf of honeysuckle having round holes on each side of the midrib be noticed, examination of the underside of that leaf may reveal a young caterpillar of this species.
The common honeysuckle, or woodbine (Lonicera periclymenum) is the usual food, but in confinement the caterpillars will eat the foliage of the cultivated kinds ofLonicera, and, it is stated, even snowberry (Symphoricarpus racemosus). In rearing it will, however, be safer to supply them with the ordinary food wherever this is to be obtained. July and August are the months in which to look for them. The chrysalis is blackish brown, the skin is rather roughened, and the ring divisions are paler brown. It is protected by a silken cocoon, the interior of which is smooth, and the exterior coated with earth, etc.
From mid-May to mid-June in average years, the moth is on the wing. The blossoms of the rhododendron are its favourite attraction, and the best time to see it at these flowers is on a nice sunny morning between ten o'clock and midday. The flowers of the bugle (Ajuga reptans) growing in meadows, wood-ridings, on railway banks or hedgerows, are hardly less attractive, but these are less easily worked than the higher shrubs. The collector has simply to stand before the latter and await the arrival of the active Bee Hawks. Among other flowers that this moth has been observed to visit are those of its own food plant; ragged robins (Lychnis flos-cuculi), ground ivy (Nepeta glechoma), and also blue-bell and primrose.
The species is widely distributed and locally common throughout England, but its northern range does not extend apparently beyond Yorkshire. According to Kane it is absent from Ireland; and the reports of odd specimens from Scotland are probably erroneous. Its distribution abroad extends over Europe, except the most northern parts, a large portion of northern and central Asia, and southwards to North Africa.
Moses Harris, it may be mentioned, figured this moth in 1775 as "The Clear-winged Humming-bird Sphinx."
This moth (Plate21, Figs. 4, 5) has long been known as "bombyliformis" and was so mentioned by Haworth in 1802, but for some years past there has been a growing tendency to discard the name altogether, and as most recent authors follow Kirby's identification of this species as thetityusof Linnæus, that name is here adopted.
The chief characters separating this moth from the preceding are the narrow blackish borders of the wings and the absence of the black mark at the end of the cell of fore wings. It has been suggested that the female deposits its green oval eggs on the undersides of the leaves of devil's-bit scabious (Scabiosa succisa) whilst on the wing, but as she will lay freely in a box it is most probable that she settles on the plants when engaged in egg laying.
The caterpillar (Plate20, Fig. 1) is green, roughened with white points, from which tiny hairs arise; the green colour varies in tint from whitish to bluish; the lines along each side of the back are yellowish, and often have purplish red spots, or patches, upon them; the spiracles are set in purplish red patches, and the roughened reddish-brown horn is finely pointed. The under side is traversed by a purplish-red stripe. There is some modification in the reddish markings, both as regards number and intensity; these are well developed in the specimen from the New Forest figured on Plate20. The caterpillars may be found in June and July on the under sides of the lower leaves of the scabious, and as they eat holes in the leaves these marks should afford a clue to their whereabouts.
A few days before changing to a dark brown chrysalis, which is enclosed in a coarse and very loosely constructed cocoon, the caterpillar assumes a reddish colour.
This moth, which much resembles a large humble bee, is onthe wing from about the middle of May to the middle of June. It should be looked for in places where its food plant flourishes, such as rough fields adjoining woods, woodland glades, marshy heaths, fens, bogs, etc. It visits the blossoms of various low growing plants, among which the louseworts (Pedicularis palustrisandP. sylvatica) and the bugle (Ajuga reptans) are perhaps favourites. In some localities the blossoms of the rhododendron and of the bird's-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) are very attractive. When seen hovering over the flowers it must be approached cautiously, as, although seemingly fully engrossed in the business in hand, it is quickly alarmed and its movements are rapid.
It occurs throughout the greater part of England and Wales and northwards to Sutherlandshire in Scotland. In Ireland it is abundant in many localities.
Distributed over Europe its range extends northwards to Lapland, southwards to north-west Africa, and eastward to Amurland.
In the majority of our moths belonging to this family there is a tooth-like tuft of scales projecting from about the middle of the inner margin of the fore wings; these, when the moth is resting, are brought together and raised above the level of the closed wings (see Fig. 11, page11). The antennæ of the male are bipectinated in most of the species, but those ofOdontosia,Lophopteryx, andPhaleraare dentated and each tooth has a little tuft of short hair.
The moths are not often seen in the day time, but a few species are sometimes met with at rest on tree trunks, palings, etc. All fly at night and are pretty rapid on the wing; possibly if it were not for the fact that a bright light has a powerful attraction for them, the perfect insects would be rarely captured.Specimens, when caught, except females which it may be well to keep for eggs, should be killed and pinned at once, as many kinds become very restless when imprisoned in a box and soon damage themselves. Females usually deposit their eggs freely, and in most cases the caterpillars are not difficult to rear when once they begin to feed. Sometimes it is not easy to induce them to commence this very necessary business. The caterpillars, except those ofPhaleraandPygæra, are without hairs on the body; those of the true Prominents generally have one, or more, hump on the back; in some kinds the anal prolegs or hind claspers, are small. When resting the hinder part of the caterpillar is more or less raised, several of them elevate the front portion also, and frequently the posture assumed is a most curious one.
The caterpillars ofCerura,Dicranura, andStauropushave the hind claspers transformed into tail-like appendages, which in the case of the Puss and Kittens take the form of a pair of slender tubes furnished with flagellæ, or whips, which can be protruded or withdrawn as occasion may require. These organs are presumably for defensive purposes, but are not always effective in combating the attack of parasitical flies, as these evidently manage to deposit their egg on the caterpillars not infrequently.
The pupa, or chrysalis, of some kinds is enclosed in a hard cocoon on tree trunks, and others in a soft cocoon generally underground; sometimes, however, the cocoon is spun up between leaves; occasionally, as for example that of the Buff-tip, the chrysalis is found in the ground without any protecting covering, although the cell in which it was formed may have been flimsily lined with silk.
Nearly one hundred species are referred to this family in Staudinger's "Catalogue of Palæarctic Lepidoptera," and of these twenty-five occur, or have been taken, in the British Isles, nearly all of which are accepted as indigenous. Two of thethree species not generally regarded as true natives have been found in the caterpillar state, and the third was reared from an egg obtained with others of the same kind in Norfolk.
This moth (Plate22, Fig. 3) differs from either of the two next following in being whiter, and in having both margins of the central band of the fore wings angled or bent inwards above the middle; this is markedly so on the outer side. The band itself is black, inclining to purplish rather than grey. Barrett mentions a specimen without central band or cloud towards tip.