170 The Scottish Naturalist, 



it appears, however, to be identical with the form from the Upper 

 Harz Mountains. I saw only four males and two females, they 

 were like dark specimens from the Upper Harz Mountains. En- 

 tomologist> 1880; plate 4, figs. 16 and 17. Time of flight is June 

 and July. 



The Upper Harz form is, on the whole, smaller than that of the 

 North German Lowlands ; and whilst the latter is pretty constant 

 in its yellow-brown colour, the scale of the colours in the former 

 in the males, (the females vary less), grades from the deepest black- 

 brown in the ground-colour of the upper wings, through red-brown 

 and red-yellow to a pale leather-yellow. In the dark specimens? 

 the white bands have often a silvery lustre, and look like washed- 

 out spots on the blackish under wings. Such specimens have a 

 very variegated appearance. The pale examples show often quite 

 faded markings, they thus approach the ab. Gallicus Ld. Since 

 the latter is found on the Riesengebirge, I have no doubt that it 

 occurs also on the Upper Harz Mountains. I have also got it 

 from the Island of Arran, on the West Coast of Scotland. As yet 

 it has not been observed in the Shetland Islands. The larva of 

 Hepialus Velleda I find, in all the books accessible to me, given as 

 living in the root of Pteris aquilina. That is correct as regards 

 the Lowland form, which appears in the woods where Pteris 

 aquilina grows. It is, however, quite wrong for the form found in 

 the Upper Harz, for there Velleda flies in company with Hepialus 

 Humuli at a height of 2500 feet above the meadows, and where 

 no Pteris aquilina is to be found for miles around. I suppose 

 that the larva there lives upon the roots of Meum Athamanticum or 

 of a species of Pumex, which is found in abundance in the 

 meadows. I have also seen newly-emerged moths creep out of 

 these plants, especially from Meum. The time of flight of this 

 species is at sunset, and lasts scarcely twenty minutes, afterwards 

 one can only find a few females still laying eggs. The pairing 

 takes place vehemently; often from ten to twenty males swarm 

 round a newly-emerged female, like bees before the door of a hive. 

 When the pairing is over, the remaining males disappear very fast. 

 Dr. Struve has noticed the same in Hepialus Pyrenaicus. I have 

 made the preceding statements, because I suppose that on other 

 mountains, as well as on those in the Far North, the mode of life 

 of this species is the same. 



