The Powdered Quaker (Tæniocampa gracilis).
In the ordinary English form of this species (Plate [158], Figs. 3 ♂, 4 ♀) the fore wings are pale whity brown, more or
less tinged with grey; the submarginal line, and the stigmata, are usually distinct, but the other cross lines are only indicated by blackish dots on the veins. In Ireland the specimens are creamy white and very often tinged with pink (Fig. 5), but in the New Forest, Hants (Fig. 7), and in the marshes of North Kent (Fig. 6), deep purplish grey, purplish brown, and reddish (var. rufescens, Cockerel) forms occur.
The caterpillar is green, sometimes tinged with yellowish or with bluish; usual spots whitish; three whitish or yellowish lines along the back and one along the sides, the latter shaded above with dark green or blackish; head ochreous brown. It feeds from May to July on meadow-sweet (Spiræa), fleabane (Inula), purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), yellow loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris), sweet-gale, sallow, bramble, etc. The moth is out in April and May, and is often plentiful at damson and plum blossom, as well as sallow catkins. The species is widely distributed throughout the greater part of the British Isles, but is perhaps more generally common in the southern and eastern counties of England. The range abroad extends to Japan.
Peucephila essoni, Hampson.
Trans. Ent. Soc., Lond., 1909, Part IV., Pp. 461-463, Pl. xvi., Fig. 1, Dec. Entom., 1909, p. 258. See Appendix.
APPENDIX.
Page 28. Herse Convolvuli.—Reported from several English counties, August and September, 1911, and again in 1915. In 1917 the species seems to have been more widely spread over our islands, specimens being recorded from Ireland and Shetland.
Page 41. Phryxus Livornica.—Further records are: In July, 1909, a dead male specimen was found under an electric light standard at Exeter, and one was noted on a bowling green at Blackpool in October. Specimens were recorded from Surrey, Sussex, Hants, Devon, and Cornwall in 1911. On January 19, 1912, a male was taken from a shrub in a garden at Tavistock. Thirty-five were captured in South Cornwall between May 9 and 23 of the same year, and single specimens were reported from North Wales, Norfolk, Dorset, also in May.