BY JOHN WALTON. 13 



south of the town, and near the sea-coast, I found the Astra- 

 galus Glycyphyllus, out of bloom, but not the A. Astragali as 

 I expected. More inland, up the dell, to make up for my disap- 

 pointment, I found upon the Vicia cracca the two species in 

 question, and the A. unicolor, all in plenty. Having taken 

 about two hundred of each (being as many as I wished to pos- 

 sess, for the pleasure of supplying my friends) in three or four 

 successive days ; and being fortunate enough in securing seve- 

 ral pairs in coltu, of both species, upon examining their sexual 

 characters, I was delighted to find the whole of them conspicu- 

 ously distinct, both in the A. Spencii and the A. nnicolor. By 

 mounting the whole on cards, with the sexes in pairs, and dis- 

 playing their legs and antennae, 1 was pleased to see I possessed 

 a very long series of varieties of the sexes of the two species. 

 The prominence of the eye, and consequent narrowness of the 

 forehead, in A. Spencii varies considerably in both sexes, but 

 surprisingly so in the female. The rostrum, in this species, 

 also varies in length ; the variation in the prominence of the 

 €ye is a character I have observed in many other species — viz. 

 in A. violaceum, A. curtirostre, &c. of which I possess very 

 singular examples, picked out of quantities that I have from 

 time to time collected. 



Mr. Kirby says, " A (meaning the one described) differs 

 from var. j3 and var. 7 more than the sexes usually do, and 

 may possibly be distinct ; yet they are so extremely similar to 

 each other, that I judged it best not to separate them." I quote 

 this opinion of Mr. Kirby to support mine ; because Mr. 

 Waterhouse and myself were at issue on this identical insect, 

 which he thought not the same as its varieties, /3 and 7. It is 

 numbered, and labelled 27, by Mr. Kirby. 1 presume it is 

 the original specimen described by him : there is no mark on 

 the label to denote the sex : it is a male, — a variety, with a 

 narrow head, and the pubescence is worn off by age or other- 

 wise ; the var. /3 is a male also, and var. 7 a female. 



A. Spencii is described from an unique specimen, in the col- 

 lection of Mr. Spence ; but there are now two insects in Mr. 

 Kirby's collection, which appear to have been added after- 

 wards. The first, with a number and sexual mark, thus 37 J ; 

 and the other labelled thus $ ; both of which are correct, as far 

 as regards the sexes ; but the insects are female and male of 

 A. foteolatiun. At the end of the second part of his mono- 



