The distribution abroad is extensive, embracing South Europe, Turkey, Asia Minor, Egypt, North-west Africa, Madeira, and the Canary Isles. It has also been found in France and Germany, but its occurrence in the latter country has been even less frequent than in England.
The Small Marbled (Thalpochares parva).
This species, of which a foreign example is represented on Plate [21], Fig. 3, has a similar distribution to that of T. ostrina, only it does not seem to occur in Madeira or the Canaries, and its eastward range extends to Central and Southern India.
The fore wings are pale reddish ochreous; first line, oblique, dusky, slightly waved on lower half, bordered inwardly with brownish and outwardly with white; second line, dusky and irregular.
The earliest specimen noted in Britain was captured at Teignmouth, South Devon, in July, 1844; another was said to have been captured at Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, but it has been suggested that this specimen might probably be referable to T. ostrina. Mr. E. Bankes has a specimen, taken by himself on a salt marsh in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, June 8, 1892. This seems to be all that is definitely known of this species in Britain, but others have been noted from the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man.
Thalpochares paula.
The fore wings are white, clouded with pale brownish grey beyond the almost straight and rather oblique first line, and also beyond the angulated second line.
Of this species (Plate [21], Fig. 6) a specimen, now in the collection of Mr. E. R. Bankes, was taken at Freshwater, Isle of Wight, in June, 1872. Two other specimens, one of which seems to have been captured by a boy who was collecting on the south coast, were recorded in 1873; these insects were at that time in the collection of the Rev. H. Burney, and had been caught several years earlier.
The range abroad extends through Europe and Asia to South Siberia. The specimen figured is from Dresden.