and southern counties, and in some of the midland. Rare in Wales, Cheshire, Lancashire, and York. Only doubtfully recorded from Scotland. In Ireland it is widely distributed, and, according to Kane, not uncommon where it occurs.
The Northern Footman (Lithosia sericea).
Gregson named and described this insect in 1860, and in the following year Guenée described it as L. molybdeola. It seems to be peculiar to England; and only occurs on the mosses of Lancashire and Cheshire. The fore wings are somewhat narrower and darker in colour than those of the Scarce Footman; and the hind wings are suffused, to a greater or lesser extent, with dark grey. Some entomologists maintain that this is probably only a small form of L. complana. According to Mr. Pierce it cannot be specifically separated from that species or from L. pygmæola by the genitalia, the usual test in such matters. Prout, however, has stated that Speyer, in 1867, pointed out structural differences, not only in the shape of the wings, but also in the size of the costal tuft of scales on the underside of the fore wings. It should be added that there does not seem to be any material difference between the caterpillar of complana and that of sericea. Anyway, the question of form or species may here be left open. The fact of the Northern, or Gregson's, Footman being an exclusive British production invests the insect with an importance greatly above that attaching to the majority of our moths. The moth is depicted on Plate [97], Fig. 8.
The Pigmy Footman (Lithosia lutarella).
Ochreous white, sometimes tinged with greyish, or with yellowish; hind wings clouded with greyish on the front area. Female almost always smaller than the male. The fore wings
vary a good deal in the matter of colour, the extremes being yellow and dark grey. (Plate [99], Figs. 3, 4.)
Buckler describes the caterpillar as brown on the back, with a central thick black line, and two dark brown lines; sides paler brown, with a dusty white line along the spiracles; the warts (tubercles) with short brown hairs, and the head black. August to June.
This extremely local little moth was unknown as an inhabitant of Britain until 1847, when it was described as L. pygmæola, by Doubleday in the Zoologist for that year, and noted as having been found among rushes on the coast of Kent. Two years later the insect was again referred to, and it was then stated to be confined to a "space of about four hundred yards in extent, on the coast of Deal." It then became known as the "Deal Footman." During the past seventy years or so large numbers have no doubt been removed from this locality, which is the only British one it was known to occur in. It is still to be found there, although said to be less common than formerly. In the Entomologist for September, 1912, this species was recorded as not uncommon on marram grass growing on the Norfolk coast.
Some present-day entomologists still incline to the opinion that the moth is a distinct species, and not a local race of lutarella, which is found throughout Central and Eastern Europe; ranging to South Scandinavia, Finland, and eastward to Siberia and Amurland. The var. pygmæola has been obtained in Holland.