84 [April, 



of tlie fore-wing than in elutella. The special characteristics of seniirufa^ Sin., 

 which is extremely local, usually rare, and apparently confined to England, have 

 been pointed out with more or less detail (though with some minor discrepancies, 

 which are probably due, in great measure, to differences in the condition of the 

 specimens examined) by Stainton (^. c), by Barrett [Ent. Mo. Mag., xi, 270 (1875)], 

 by Ragonot [Ent. Mo. Mag., xxii, 24 (1885)], and, most fully and i-eliably, by Dr. 

 J. H. Wood [Ent. Mo. Mag., xxiv, 250-2 (1888)], who bred the insect from the 

 egg, and contributed some valuable notes on its life-history. In spite of such an 

 accumulation of evidence, this thoroughly distinct species is omitted from Meyrick's 

 Handbook Brit. Lep. (1895), in which semirufa, Hw., is entered (whether correctly 

 or incorrectly seems uncertain) as unquestionably identical with elutella, Hb. 



It seems advisable to mention that the Cnephasia referred to above as commu- 

 nana is the excessively local species, with long and peculiarly narrow grey fore-wings, 

 to which Barrett and Ragonot used to apply the name [_vide Ent. Mo. Mag., xx, 243 

 (1884)]. I agree with them in this application of it, for the insect in question, which 

 was the subject of an interesting note by Mr. A. Thurnall in Ent. Mo. Mag., ser. 2, 

 xvi, 260 (1905), is probably the one from which Herrich-Sohaffer's figure "114" 

 was made, and we must assume that his figure " 113," also named " cominunana" on 

 the Plate, likewise represents this species, for th > shape of the wings supports this 

 idea, although I have never yet seen a specimen of it nearly so dark us that sliown 

 in the figure, in which the ground-colour is fuscous, and the grey hue is reduced to 

 two costal and two dorsal, nearly opposite, spots. Such a form may, however, exist, 

 in spite of the only pronounced melanic tendency, known to me, in British examples 

 of communana being shown by the markings and not by the ground-colour ; and 

 although the posterior margin of the basal patch is strongly and acutely' angulatcd 

 in fig. 113, whereas the corresponding margin is hardly angulaled in fig. 114, this 

 by no means militates against the assumption that the figures represent the same 

 insect under different forms, for this is a detail in which our communana, in common 

 with various other Cnephasire, shows great individual variation. In Staudinger and 

 Rebel's " Catalog," part ii, p. 92 (1901), communana, II. -S., is sunk as a synonym of 

 wahlbomiana, L., but the Cnephasia in question, which we believe to be conimttnana, 

 H.-S., is certainly distinct from wahlbomiana, L. (unless every interpretation that I 

 have seen of Linne's conception* is quite erroneous), and from some, and probably 

 from every one, of the various other forms included by Rebel under the all-embracing 

 term "wahlbomiana." Jjikc E. semirufa, Sin., it is, unfortunately, omitted from 

 Meyrick's " Handbook," where " communana, H.-S.," is merely entered as a doubtful 

 synonym of conspersana, Dgl., which latter species, however, although extremely 

 variable, is abundantly distinct in ail its forms from the one under notice. Moreover, 

 whereas conspersana appears in July and August, communana, of which both larva 

 and food-plant seem to be unknown, should be sought for, as pointed out by .\lr. 

 Thurnall {I. c), in the end of May and tlio beginning of June. The following 

 characteristics of commMwana together render it so unlike all its British congeners 

 that there is but little chance of its being confused with any of them : — (1) the 

 sliape of the fore-wing, which is remarkably narrow in comparison with its length, 

 in both sexes, and has a very oblique tcrmen j the largest of the thirteen ^ J before 



* I liave not as yet been able to consult the original notice of wahlbomiana, L., which was 

 published in the tenth edition of Linnd's " Systema Matui-aj."— E. E. B. 



