NOTES ON THE SEASOn's COLLECTING. 271 



specimens. Of these one is regularly halved, left side ? right side ^ . 

 The right side of the abdomen shows the usual <? "clasper." The 

 wings are strikingly diti'erent, the male side being of the strongly 

 banded form, and the female side unhanded. The second specimen is 

 more complicated. The left wings and antenna are ? . The right 

 wings are banded rather indistinctly and approach those of the g in 

 shape: the right antenna appears to be intermediate, and the body, 

 outwardly, appears to be rT . I have some numbers of pupte lying 

 over the winter, and hope to breed from the resulting moths next year. 



PnbjoiinnatHs irariis. — This species has been extremely variable this 

 year, and some of the specimens obtained are exceedingly interesting. 

 Of the spring brood I took 90 specimens at Boxhill, Banstead, etc., and 

 of these no less than 30 show traces of ol^solescence in the underside 

 spotting. Most of these are not extreme. The specimens vary from 

 those m which the basal spots of the forewings only are absent (ah. 

 icarinns, Bcharf., eight specimens) to forms in which a large number 

 of the spots of both basal and submedian series in all wings are absent. 

 The most extreme has the basal, and the two lower submedian spots 

 absent oa the forev/ings, on the hindwings the first and second basal 

 and first submedian are present, and of the normal size. All the 

 remaining spots are represented only by a few white scales, and in 

 some cases traces of the black centre. One very fine $ specimen has 

 no basal spots, wi;h the exception of traces of the first on each hind- 

 wing, and all the submedian spots are thrown right out against the 

 marginal lanules, leaving the centre of the wing clear of spots. 

 Interest centres, however, chiefly in the unusually large proportion (one 

 in three) showing traces of obsolescence. During the last fortnight of 

 May the weather in Surrey was unusually cold, and I think this is 

 almost certainly the cause of the line of variation shown in the speci- 

 mens. The experiments of Krodel on pupa' of Atjiiadcs coridm) [All;/. 

 ZeiU. fur Ent., ix., p. 106) appear to support this view. A series of 

 P. icaruH, from Horsley, exhibited by Mr. W. E. King at a recent meet- 

 ing of the London Natural History Society, show the same character- 

 istics as my own, though I have no information as to the proportion 

 of obsolete to typical forms. Mr. L. W. Newman informs me that 

 during the spring emergence he captured in Kent a specimen with the 

 spots entirely obsolete (ab. obsnLeta, Clark), and others approaching it. 



I was interested, in view of this marked characteristic of the spring 

 brood, to investigate thoroughly the variation of the summer brood, and 

 during a fortnight's holiday in North Herts, in August, I overhauled 

 some thousands of specimens and found only 80 obsolescent specimens, 

 six of these, however, are extreme and worth particular mention. Two 

 males have the underside spotting completely obsolete. A male and a 

 female, taken together on August 18th, Lave the forewing spotting 

 normal, the hindwings showing only three spots (one and two of the 

 basal and one of the submedian series). Two others have the hind- 

 wing spotting almost completely obsolete. Another extreme ab. nbsoleta 

 was taken in the same spot by Mr. Newman, and I hear of others from 

 various localities. The evidence is, perhaps, not strong enough to 

 justify an assumption that the obsolescence of marking in the spring 

 brood has a direct effect on the summer brood, but the facts may be 

 considered worth recording. 



Aricia meclon. — In Surrey, in early June, I picked up fifteen speci- 



