56 



entomologists are aware, is dark ash colour, with black spots, while 

 the female is cream colour, with similar markings, like the specimen 

 figured. Taken by Mr. Nicholas Cooke, near Dublin, 1842." This 

 description, it must be admitted, does very accurately describe what 

 might be a gynandromorphic example of mendica, but on turning to 

 plate xiv., figure 5, we find, not a gynandromorph, but one of the 

 most beautifully executed representations of a male var .ritstica that 

 we have ever seen. There is no suggestion of the sub-diaphanous 

 white of the female wings, but the well-clothed creamy-white of the 

 male ntstica wing is well illustrated. It is therefore very evident 

 that this record was founded on an erroneous identification. 



In 1868 Gregson recorded (" Entom.," iv., p. 11) that he had in 

 his collection "one hermaphrodite xieiulica having male and female 

 antennae, and of a light smoky colour throughout." It is unfortu- 

 nate that all track of this specimen seems to have been lost. 

 Gregson's collection passed into Sydney Webb's hands and was, I 

 believe, incorporated with his own ; but in the catalogue of sale of 

 the Webb collection, no mention is made of this remarkable speci- 

 men. However, in Mosley's " Vars. of British Lep.," 1878-94, 

 Arctia, plate i., three of Gregson's tuemlica, presumably his best 

 forms, are figured, and no. 8 is a rather small, light, smoky speci- 

 men, but although one antenna is possibly slightly more slender 

 than the other, both are clearly represented as pectinate. One 

 wonders whether this may be the specimen referred to. 



In 1896 Oskar Schultz, Avho seems to have made a speciality of 

 collecting records of gynandromorphs, published in " Illustrierten 

 Wochenschrift fiir Entomologie," vol i., p. 369 a list of species in 

 which gynandromorphs had been noted, and in which mendica was 

 erroneously included on Wing's record, and this he repeated in 

 various continental publications during the succeeding few years. 

 It IS to be regretted that this erroneous record should have received 

 such wide publication, but as in a subsequent list in which he 

 summarises his five previous articles on gynandromorphs he omits 

 mendica, it is to be presumed that he had detected the inaccuracy of 

 Wing's identification. 



However, in 1909 Conrad B. Booklet, Secretary of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of Coblenz, reported that Herr. Burscheid exhibited 

 a somewhat worn, but tolerably good specimen, of a bilateral 

 gynandromorph of S. mendica, caught at Coblenz. ("Int. Ent. Zeit." 

 v., 3. p. 96, 1909). Schultz, referring to this specimen, tells us 

 that the wings and antennae on left side are male and on the right 

 side female and longer, and that the body has the colours of the two 

 sexes sharply separated. ("Ent. Zeit.", 1911-2, p. 87.) This 

 description suggests a very perfect gynandromorph, the sexes more 

 sharply divided, indeed, than one usually finds in similar 

 specimens of other species, and should it bear further critical examin- 

 ation, constitutes, so far as I am aware, the only true record of a 

 gynandromorphic mendica. 



