288 THE MOTHS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



hazardous business of collecting them. The earliest known 

 British specimen was taken at a lighthouse near Padstow in 

 Cornwall, and five years later the moth was bred from a cater- 

 pillar found in the Isle of Man. In 1880 a specimen was taken 

 at sugar in the middle of a small wood in South Pembrokeshire. 

 According to Hampson this, and the other two species usually 

 included in Polia^ are referable to Antitype^ Hiibn. On the 

 same authority nigrocuicta^ Treit., is the earlier name for the 

 present species, as the figure of xaiithomista^ Hlibn., was not 

 published until 1827. 



The Sprawler {Brachionycha {Asteroscopus) sphinx). 



The black streaked and dotted, pale brownish grey moth 

 (Plate 138, Fig. 8) occurs, more or less locally, in most of the 

 English counties from Norfolk, Huntingdon, and Oxford, south- 

 wards ; and from Gloucester northwards through Hereford and 

 Worcester, to Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, to Darlington 

 in Durham, and Cumberland. It is, however, rare in the 

 northern counties. The caterpillar is yellowish green ; three 

 w^hitish lines on the back, the central one broadly edged with 

 green on both sides, and the others inwardly by a dark line ; 

 the front ring is edged with whitish, and the head is greenish. 

 It feeds on the foliage of various trees, including oak, beech, 

 elm, ash, sallow, hme in May and June. The moth flies in 

 November and December. 



The Rannoch Sprawler {Brachionycha {Asteroscoptis) 

 nuhecnlosa). 



The first British specimen was taken at Rannoch in the 

 spring of 1854., and in that Perthshire locality the species is 

 still to be found, sitting on the trunks of the birch trees in late 

 March and in April. It has frequently been reared from the 



