96 



Godart, in 1821, did the same thing, but he also dealt with the 

 southern form separately, under the name of weone. Mr. Gibbs 

 therefore expressed the opinion that the proper name for our British 

 variety of aijen'a was tirciH, and that the authorship of the name 

 must be ascribed to Ernst and Engramelle. The insect called 

 meoiie by Cramer was the very red form, which flew in Algeria, 

 Morocco, and Gibraltar. Cramer's original drawing was at South 

 Kensington, and that, in conjunction with the fact that Cramer's 

 specimen was known to be from the Barbary coast, disposed of all 

 doubt. The name meone was wrongly applied by subsequent 

 authors to the South European form. Esper created confusion by 

 quoting Cramer's description, but making meone, Cr., a synonym of 

 xipliia, Fab., a totally distinct insect. Hiibner made matters worse, 

 first by applying the name meone to the South European form and 

 also by perpetuating Esper's mistake of supposing meone andxiphia 

 to be the same thing. And so it came about that our North Euro- 

 pean form was called legeria and the southern darker spotted form 

 meone, both of which names were wrongly applied, and it was only 

 in comparatively recent years that the mistakes were found out. 



Mr. Gibbs also exhibited a smaller case of Devonshire specimens, 

 including a number taken by Dr. K. C. L. Perkins and himself in 

 April and May, 1916, and a short series of the summer brood 

 captured by Dr. Perkins in 1911. He remarked that in some 

 seasons that gentleman had taken the insect as early as March 20th. 

 He was pleased to say that Dr. Perkins was conducting some rear- 

 ing experiments which would p'robably yield valuable results. 



Mr. Platt-Barrett exhibited specimens from various localities, 

 British and continental, and contributed the following note :- — 



" I first captured this species in Yorkshire, at Doncaster, on April 

 19th, 1856, and I have never seen it so abundant since. 



" When I came to London, soon after that, I was told it was a 

 common species in woods and shady lanes (suburbs of London 

 excepted). It had disappeared from Peckham Rye and other subur- 

 ban localities within the memory of active entomologists. This 

 disappearance has gradually increased over a greater area. 



" Outside the London area — the * Wood Argus ' as I called it — 

 always appeared as a pleasant surprise. I met with it at Ashtead 

 under the oak trees, near Headley under the beech, and near Dork- 

 ing under the pines, but only in small numbers. Also at Loughton, 

 when I went for Erastria venustula, at Darenth also and other 

 Kentish woods, the best locality being between Eynesford and 

 Shoreham. 



