Eggs received from the New Forest, June 25, 1907, were laid around a slender, bare, twig of heather, the batch measuring about three-quarters of an inch in length. At first they were golden yellow, but afterwards became pale purplish brown and very glossy (Plate [91]).
Although the eggs appear to be more frequently laid on heather than on anything else, the caterpillars do not seem to be very partial to the plant as an article of food if others are available. At the present time (October 13) I have about a score or so of young larvæ feeding, and apparently thriving, on dandelion, lettuce, and grass, but they certainly seem to prefer the first named. They are now rather over half an inch in length, and yellowish brown in colour; there is a whitish grey stripe along the back; the warts are shining black, and the hairs arising from them are black, mixed with a few longer white ones; head blackish.
Caterpillars after hibernation have been found on the grass,
Aira cæspitosa, during March from about the 10th onwards; they are then about a quarter of an inch long, and according to the late Mr. Fowler, always found on the sunny side of the clumps of Aira stretched out, and evidently enjoying the warmth of the sun. Some collected in that month were reared on groundsel, and produced moths from July 12 to August 20. The chrysalis is at first reddish, afterwards shining jet black; in a slight egg-shaped white silken cocoon, spun up in tufts of grass.
In exceptional seasons the moth has emerged in late May, but June and July are the usual months, and it may occur as late as August. It rests among the heather, is easily disturbed on sunny days, and is very active on the wing, although it does not fly far before settling again. The species is very local in England, and only found on a heath near Bournemouth, in a heathy district between Ringwood and Verwood in Dorset, and in a not generally known part of the New Forest.
The Crimson Speckled (Deiopeia pulchella).
This white moth, prettily speckled with black and red dots, is a native of warmer countries than ours. However, it not only visits us now and then in the course of its wanderings, but if the migrants arrive in England at a suitable time of the year, the females most probably deposit eggs from which caterpillars may hatch, and some of them feed up and produce moths later in the same year. Stephens, writing in 1829, mentions a specimen taken many years previously in Yorkshire. This was no doubt the earliest known British example of Haworth's Crimson Speckled. A second specimen captured in a field near Christchurch, Hants, in October, 1818, was figured by Samouelle in 1819. Between the year last mentioned and 1827, two other specimens occurred, both at Hove, Sussex. Stainton (1857) adds Epping, Manchester, Stowmarket, and Worthing. In 1869
three specimens were taken in the autumn; and a specimen was found at Scarborough in June, 1870, and one in Sussex. In 1871 a record was established, when at least thirty specimens were obtained at various places on the east, south, and south-west coasts, and in the Isle of Wight; one specimen being also recorded from Manchester. Two specimens were taken in Cornwall, May, 1874, and in the autumn of that year three occurred on the south coast, and one in Derbyshire. The moth seems not to have been noticed in the springs of 1875 or 1876, but twenty-four specimens were recorded later in the former year, and twenty-three in the latter. Between 1876 and 1892 less than twenty specimens were reported altogether, and the species was either entirely absent or overlooked in 1877, 1882, 1883, and from 1887 to 1891, inclusive. In 1892 several moths were captured in May and June on the coast; one at Brighton in July, two in the Hastings' district, and one at Folkestone in August. Since 1892 and up to 1907, a period of fifteen years, the species seems to have been rarely noted in England; the records showing in 1894 (2), 1895 (1), 1906 (1). In 1901 three specimens were reported as captured, and one seen at Earlsfield, Surrey, July 1 to 15. (Plate [92], Figs. 3, 4.)
The caterpillar is greyish with black warts from which arise tufts of hairs, blackish on the back and pale greyish on the sides; a white line on the back, and one on the sides. Each ring is often barred with orange. Head reddish-ochreous marked with black. Feeds on forget-me-not (Myosotis), borage (Borago), etc. The chrysalis is reddish brown, enclosed in a white silken cocoon spun up among the food plant, or on the surface of the ground; in the latter case particles of earth adhere to the outside.