60 THE entomologist's KECORD. 



they were exceedingly scarce. I captured one example of this sex, 

 which is quite different from anything that I had previously seen. 

 The usual very dark marginal and submarginal area on the forewings 

 is extended right round the hindwings and gives the specimen an 

 iinusual and striking appearance. Another lovely form, a female, is 

 of an intense black on the upperside, without a trace of the orange 

 lunules; really a black form. Another very noteworthy female, I have 

 taken at the same place, is of the usual brownish ground-colour, 

 having a row of Avhitish spots above each of the orange crescents with 

 the lower parts of the crescents only just decernible. These whitish 

 spots are extended along the margin of the forewings as well as the 

 hind. A lovely underside of the ab. obsoleta form fell to my 

 net, in which the underside is quite devoid of eyespots and without the 

 central markings to the outer marginal characters. The ground 

 colour is of a rich chocolate merging into whitish in the discal area. 

 Two female undersides are of an intense smoky brown all over. One 

 female has a whitish underside which could readily be taken for that 

 of a male. Another female was very beautifully striated with long 

 dashes on the underside in place of the usual spots. Two females 

 were very bleached in appearance, having whitish patches, one specimen 

 having half a wing bleached. Taken as a whole, the number of the 

 strikingly beautiful and interesting forms of Aijriades coridnu, which 

 I have taken in the Herts district, quite exceeds my experience in 

 other localities, during the thirty years that I have been working at 

 the variation of the "blues." 



[Since writing the above I have received several items of informa- 

 tion from other collectors and can now total about 43 females of this 

 curious form, and have also seen a lovely asymmetrical male, which I 

 hope later to be able to more closely exaiiiine. The smaller side of 

 this last is on the left. All the additional specimens just reported to 

 me were taken during August 1913, from the same spot. It will be 

 very valuable information if any other collectors who have visited the 

 same place will report on their captures during the past three seasons, 

 and especially August 1913. — C.P.P.] 



On the Arthropods inhabiting Molenests.* 



By W. E. SHARP, F.E.S. 

 It was in September 1906 that Dr. Joy of Bradfield surprised the 

 Entomological world and opened a new chapter for Coleopterists by 

 announcing his discoveries of beetles not only in the nests of moles, 

 but peculiar to such a habitat. Since that time many Coleopterists in 

 different parts of this country have, with more or less success, dug up 

 raolenests and added several species of Coleoptera to the list originally 

 published by Dr. Joy. Nor have the mites, the fleas, and other in- 

 mates of the nests, been entirely neglected ; but, so far as we are 

 aware, no list has ever been published in English, indeed, no materials 

 for any such list have ever, to our knowledge, been gathered together 

 — -of the whole of the Arthropods ever found under any circumstances 

 within any series of British molenests. It is perhaps almost super- 



* Uber Arthropoden in Mauhourfsneitern von Fr. Heselhaus, S. J. Sittard 

 (Overgedrukt uit het Tijdschrift voor Entomologie , Deel Ivi., 1913). 



