1)0 [Septciiibfr, 



boxes may be accounted for by his unwillingness at all times to define what is meant 

 by the term " species." — Arthur G. Butler, 10, Avington Grove, Penge : August, 

 1876. 



Pachnobia alpina, Westwood, = liyperborea, Zetterstedt. — When I was in Lon- 

 don last May, Mr. McLachlan had the kindness to show me the type of P. alpina, 

 taken by Mr. Douglas in 1839 on Cairn Gowr in Perthshire, at an elevation of 

 3000 feet. The only mention of it that I have seen is in Stainton's Manual of 

 British Butterflies and Moths, vol. i, p. 241. The species ic described in Westwood 

 and Humphrey's British Moths (1843 or 1845), and I shall be glad have the exact 

 citation, as Stainton unfortunately gives no authors' names. I recognised at first 

 sight that P. alpina is the same species as the Agrotis hyperborea of my large 

 Catalogue (1871, No. 1098). Zetterstedt described it in his Insecta Lapponica, in 

 1840 (p. 938) as Hadena hyperborea. The type of P. alpina is possibly a little 

 darker than specimens from Lapland, but it is old, and even the Lapland individuals 

 show aberrations. In 1860, 1 took this insect (in company with my friend Dr. Wocke) 

 not unfrequently in Finmark (Norwegian Laplajid), in July, and we found pupse and 

 also larvae at the end of May in moss. I detailed the account in the Stettiner ento- 

 mologische Zeitung, 1861, p. 361. Since then, the species has been found on the 

 Dovrefjeld in the centre of Norway, on the Eiesengebirge (Silesia) , and on the Alps of 

 Switzerland and Tyrol. On the Alps of Carinthia it has a reddish (instead of 

 bluish) coloration, and this form was described by Hering as carnica, and by Herrich- 

 SchiifPer as glacialis. This is certainly oiily a local form of hyperborea. I saw, in 

 the Museum at Pesth, a specimen taken by the younger Frivaldsky in the Carpathian 

 Mountains, which is intermediate between the two forms. The reddish Agrotis sub- 

 rosea, Steph., becomes blue (var. subcmrulea, Stdgr.) in the north of Russia. The 

 Scotch Pachnobia aljnna must take the older name of hyperborea, Zett., and the 

 species has a wide distribution on the Continent. — O. Staudinger, Blasewitz, 

 Dresden : August, 1876. 



[This insect was described and figured (the figure tolerably good) in Humphrey 

 and Westwood's British Moths as Agrotis alpina, vol. i, p. 118, pi. xxiii, fig. 13 

 (1843). In the first edition of Doubleday's Catalogue (this portion published in 

 November, 1847), it appears as " l^eeniocampa hyperborea, Dalman ? ", with the 

 synonym " alpina, Westwood." In the edition of 1873, it is called " Pachnobia 

 alpina," with the synonym of " carnica, Heer," and no longer any mention of 

 " hyperborea." In this latter edition, Doubleday more or less followed Guenec, as a 

 reference to the " Noctu61ites," vol. i, p. 342, of the latter author, shows. The name 

 hyperborea is attributable to Zetterstedt, who adopted Dalman's IMS. name. The 

 name carnica is due to Hering, not Heer, as said by Guenee and adopted by 

 Doubleday. — Eds.]. 



Natural History of Cymatophora ocularis. — On the 28th of May, 1874, Mr. 

 J. E. Fletcher, of Worcester, very kindly sent me a dozen eggs of this species which 

 had been laid the 23rd and 26th of May : he found the ? moths, although impreg- 

 nated, very unwilling to deposit in captivity, and at last they chose to lay their eggs 

 eiiigly, or in little groups of two or three together, on paper rather than on the twigs 

 of poplar, w^itli which they had been supplied ; the hour of laying was after dusk in 

 the evening ; one moth lived eleven days after pairing, and then died without laying 

 an egjj. 



