The caterpillar is dirty white in colour inclining to brownish at each end; a whitish line along the middle of the back; head brown. Feeds from August to June in stems of Festuca arundinacea. The moth flies in June and July.
The Mere Wainscot (Tapinostola hellmanni).
Present localities for this reddish species (Plate [146], Figs. 1, 2) are Wicken and Chippenham fens, Chatteris and Whittlesford, in Cambridgeshire; Monk's Wood in Hunts. Formerly Yaxley, where it was first taken in 1847, used to be a noted locality, but the insect disappeared when the fen was drained. It has been reported from Norfolk (Yarmouth), Lincolnshire, Devonshire (Dartmoor), and Hertfordshire (Hitchin), chiefly in odd specimens. The caterpillar has been described by Hofmann as yellowish-white, or reddish above and paler beneath; plate
on first ring of the body rather glossy, head glossy yellow brown. It lives from autumn to June of the next year in stems of the wood smallreed (Calamagrostis epigeios). The moth flies in July and August.
The Lyme Grass (Tapinostola elymi).
The more or less brownish-tinged, whitish-ochreous species shown on Plate [146], Figs. 5, 6, was not recorded as a British insect until 1861. It is now known to occur in England in many localities, but all on the east coast from Norfolk to Durham. In the Entomologist for 1894, it is recorded as occurring at Montrose on the Forfarshire coast in Scotland. The caterpillar is described by Buckler as pale flesh colour, with a rather darker stripe along the back; spiracles black; head reddish-brown, shining; shining yellowish-brown plates on the first and last rings of the body. It feeds on the stems of lyme-grass (Elymus arenarius) in May and June. The moth flies at early dusk over and among its food plants, and later on it settles on the stems, from which it may be easily boxed.
The Brighton Wainscot (Oria (Synia) musculosa).
This yellowish-clouded, whitish insect is a native of Southern Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, and North-west Africa. Occasionally it has occurred in England, and in the time of Haworth and Stephens one or two specimens seem to have been recorded as British. In 1855 an example was captured at Brighton, and others occurred in the same locality, and at Bexhill, Kent (Jenner), between that year and 1860. A specimen was recorded from Brighton in 1883, and one from South Devon in 1899. Reported from Wiltshire in 1910. (Plate [146], Fig. 7.)
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| Pl. 146. | ||||
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| 7. Brighton Wainscot. |
