THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 19 



must be observed that Doubleday was the authoritative link binding the 

 " Stephens " generation with the present, and his independent opinion 

 alone would not have to be lightly passed over. My own conclusion 

 being at one with his as to suhgot/iicHy Haw., I lake as affording one 

 more link in the strong chain of independent evidence that I have been 

 able to collect. On p. 305, Mr. Slingerland says : — " Curiously enough " 

 (had I been he I should have said ' naturally enough '), " the English 

 authors have claimed Haworths insect as a variety of their tritici. 

 Doubleday said it was ' simply a variety of either tritici or aqnilina,^ but 

 it was soon restricted to the former in British lists, and it is still con- 

 sidered as such by Mr. Tutt." In Doubleday 's time, Agrotis tritici and 

 A, aquilina were considered as distinct species, but for the last thirty or 

 forty years it has been well known that aquilina is simply a local form of 

 tritici, and that the two erstwhile supposed species copulate indiscrimi- 

 nately*. The Continental (European) and British Entomologists have long 

 ago deprived it of specific rank. I'herefore, Mr. Doubleday's conclusion 

 and mine are identical. 



Mr. Slingerland says that " the evidence in support of considering 

 Haworth's subgothica as a variety of tritici (or aquilina) seems to be 

 confined principally to the simple statement of Doubleday, although Tutt 

 intimates that he has seen Haworth's description." This is really too 

 ingenuous. Haworth's Lepidoptera Britannica was the hand book of 

 British Lepidoptera, and in the hands of every British collector until the 

 publication of Stainton's Manual in 1858. Every British collector had 

 his " Haworth '' then, just as everyone has his " Stainton " now, and I can 

 only hope that this statement will be sufticient to brush out any doubtful 

 remnants of the implied suggestion contained in this remarkable 

 paragraph. 



I am totally unable to untangle the line of thought in which Mr, 

 Slingerland has got on p. 303 when he writes : — " For many years after 

 this the name subgothica rarely appeared in British lists, and only as a 

 variety of tritici; it apparently does not occur at all in recent lists. It 

 has never been taken in England, so far as I can find any record since 

 Stephens's time." Evidently, when our leading lepidopterists had 

 wofked out the true position of Haworth's subgothica, it would disappear 



*For purposes of sale British collectors still keep them separate, and some conserv- 

 ative lepidopterists, who believe nothing they do not see themselves, even write of 

 them as being so. — J. W. T, ■• 



