NOCTUAS. 



263 



445. The Shore Wainscot (Leucania littoralis). 



445. THE SHORE WAINSCOT. The antennae 

 are almost simple in the male, quite so in the 

 female : the fore wings are blunt at the tip, 

 their colour is a most delicate isabelline brown, 

 with a median longitudinal slender but con- 

 spicuous white line, extending from the base 

 to the middle of the hind margin ; this white 

 line near its middle emits a short branch 

 towards the anal angle ; the sides of this white 

 line are darker brown than the rest of the 

 disk : the hind wings are white, the rays being 

 slightly darker : the head and thorax are of 

 the same colour as the fore wings, the body 

 paler. 



We are indebted to M. Mabille for our 

 knowledge of the life-history of this species : 

 it is published in the " Annals of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of France," in the first quartei-ly 

 part for 1863. The EGG is laid in July among 

 the grasses which grow on the sand-hills by 

 the sea-side, and the young caterpillar, emerg- 

 ing before the winter, hybernates, burying 

 itself in the loose sand : in early spring it 

 eats very little and grows very slowly ; it is 

 of a very delicate constitution, and when in 

 confinement, the accidental omission of any of 

 the attentions necessary for its welfare, is at 

 once fatal to its existence ; as spring advances 

 it feeds more freely, and grows more rapidly, 

 but never thinks of leaving the vicinity of its 

 birth-place, when its presence is rendered 

 apparent by the abundance of its yellow- 

 green excrement on the sand : if this be 

 absent, the entomologist has no chance of 

 finding the caterpillar. The full-grown 

 caterpillar has a flattened porrected head, 

 rather wider than the second segment, and 

 rather broader at the mouth than on the 

 crown ; the body is nearly cylindrical, but is 

 slightly attenuated at both extremities ; the 



divisions of the segments are clearly defined, 

 and the segments themselves are full and 

 tumid; there is a glabrous plate longitudinally 

 divided on the back of the second segment : 

 the colour of the head is shining testaceous- 

 brown with a white line down the face, and 

 a white neck j the plate on the second seg- 

 ment is also shining testaceous-brown ; the 

 body is pale gray tinged with red, but varies 

 in different individuals, some having a brighter 

 tint, others are of a plain ashy-gray colour : 

 the dorsal area is gray intersected by a narrow 

 white medio-dorsal stripe, and bounded on 

 each side by a compound stripe, the middle 

 portion of which is pale, the two borders 

 composed of elongate dark markings; this 

 compound stripe is followed by a narrow 

 white stripe, and this again by a narrow 

 isabelline-brown stripe : then another white 

 stripe and another isabelline stripe ; and, 

 lastly, there is a broad milky-white stripe, 

 which includes the black spiracles ; below 

 this the colour is testaceous-gray, a colour 

 which also pervades the claspers ; the ventral 

 area is tinged with green. In a state of 

 nature, this caterpillar feeds exclusively on 

 the maritime grass, so valuable, in an econo- 

 mical point of view, in binding the sandy 

 dunes of our sea-shores, and so familiarly 

 known under the names of "marram," "mat- 

 weed," and " sea-reed " (Ammophila arundi- 

 naceci), but in confinement it will eat sedges 

 (Carex riparia and C. sylvatica). When full- 

 grown, it emits a gummy fluid from its mouth, 

 and, mingling this with the loose grains of 

 dry sand, constructs therewith a cocoon rather 

 larger than a partridge's egg ; the grains of 

 sand are arranged with some regularity on 

 the outside of this cocoon, but its powers of 

 cohesion are very limited, and the contour of 

 the cocoon is easily disturbed : in the interior 

 the caterpillar changes to an elongate CHRY- 

 SALIS, of a bright yellow tint, having still 

 paler wing cases : it remains in the chrysalis 

 state from fifteen to twenty days. 



The MOTH appears on the wing in June* 

 and July, and is very local in England; it has 

 been taken on the sand-hills at New Brighton, 

 in Cheshire, and abundantly at Lytham, in 



