THE FAUNA OF SCOTLAND. 51 



Postscript. — Since the part of this Catalogue relating to Perineura, 

 p. 14, has been put in type, I have looked into the nomenclature of this 

 group, with the result that my conclusions do not coincide with those of 

 Thomson, not indeed as to the distinctness of the species, but simply as 

 to what names they should bear. According to my views the nomencla- 

 ture should be as follows, taking the species as arranged at p. 14. 



1. P. dimidiata, Fab., female = coquehertii, Klug; varia, Gmel.; analis 

 Ste., calig'mosa, Ste., microcepJiala, Ste.; nassata, Thoms.; nee Lin, 



2. P. scutellaris, Fab. = stigma, Fab.; ambigua, Kl.; ncgleda, Lep., 

 spreta, Lep.; iMvida, Fab.; brevisjnna, Thoms. 



3. P. nassata, Lin. = mdanochroea, Gmel.; sordida,!^., (forte) Thoms. 



4. P. excisa, Thoms. = ornata, Lep. 



What Thomson regards as the male of P. dimidiata is, as I take it, in 

 reality, the male of T. nassata Lin. (female), the real male of dimidiata 

 being T. coqueberti, Kl. This seems to be also the opinion of St. 

 Fargeau, Stephens, and others. 



P. nassata is a puzzling form, and its synonymy is not easily traced 

 with certainty, from the vagueness of most of the descriptions. The 

 probability is, that there is more than one species of a yellowish colour. 

 The form with a black stripe on the abdomen has generally the inner 

 orbits of the eye only very faintly white and sometimes not at all, 

 while the 2d recurrent nervure is received behind the 2d submarginal. 

 Another variety occurs without any black on the body, with the 3d 

 submarginal cellule shorter, the 2d recurrent interstitiate, the orbits of 

 the eyes, too, having a broad white rim. A similarly marked aberration 

 is met with having the neuration as in the type. 



I have taken a large form (nearly 7 lines in length), with the colour of 

 a deeper red, no white round the eyes, the base of the antennae marked with 

 black, and the apex of the 1st, nearly the whole of the 2d and the 3d 

 abdominal segments black on the dorsal surface, the pleurae, too, being 

 more punctured and opaque than in the smaller form; the 2d recurrent 

 nervure is interstitiate. This is the rarest variety (if variety it be), and 

 what I take to be its male, has a large semi-circular emargination on the 

 last abdominal segment; the antennae are yellowish except the two basal 

 joints, underside of the body yellowish, mesonotum black, with yellowish 

 spots, while the head is yellow, except a large black mark on the vertex. 

 The pleurae are whitish, as are also the apical joints of the posterior 

 tarsi. Length 6j lines. This appears to be what Thomson describes as 

 the male of dimidiata, whose true male he does not seem to have noticed. 

 His male sordida is, I think, only a light coloured aberration of scutellaris, 

 whose male is very inconstant in coloration, 



Klug-^s sordida has the stigma brown. This does not agree with the 

 small form (length 5-6 lines) of nassata, which has it half fuscous, half 

 white. As the Fabrician description is perfectly recognisable, I see no 

 reason why Thomson's new name of brevispina should be adopted; to 



