1897.] 51 



OCCURRENCE OF " SADENA" MAILLARDI, IliiB., IN THE 

 SHETLAND ISLES. 



BT C. G. BARRETT, F.E.S. 



When looldng over the recent captures of my friend Mr. Percy 

 M. Bright in the Shetland Isles, a few days ago, I was struck with the 

 singular appearance and unusual shape of the fore-wings of one of 

 his specimens of Grymodes exuUs ; indeed, it reminded me much more 

 of Mamestra hrassiccB than of the more usual variations of C. exulis. 

 Further examination and comparison with a specimen of ''■ Hadena'' 

 MaiUardi in my own collection, and figures of that species in the 

 works of Hiibner and Herrich-Schaffer, make it quite clear that this 

 specimen belongs to that form, which is given rank (with doubt) as a 

 distinct species by Staudinger. 



The antennae of this specimen, wliich is a male, are finely ciliated, dark brown ; 

 head and thorax pale grey-brown dusted with black, and the thoracic crests tipped 

 with the same; abdomen pale yellowish-brown, with a small black-tipped crest on 

 the basal segment ; fore-wings long, with a rather straight costa, the apex acutely 

 rounded, and the hind margin rounded and very oblique ; colour pale yellowish- 

 brown, abundantly dusted with black and marbled with brown ; basal line black, 

 abbreviated, and interrupted ; first line also black, indented, and forming three long 

 irregular curves ; second line blackish, obscure, indented throughout so as to form a 

 series of small crescents, each of these three lines edged with a line of pale ground- 

 colour ; subterminal line dusky yellowish-white, indented and irregular, edged 

 inwardly with small, cloudy, black, triangular spo.ts ; orbicular stigma ovate, oblique, 

 whitish-brown edged with black, and throwing off an oblique pale streak to the 

 costal margin ; reniform stigma dark brown edged with whitish and margined with 

 black, and forming the most conspicuous marking on the wing, being set off by a 

 ratlier blackened space beyond it; claviform stigma black margined, but obscure ; in 

 the space between the second and subterminal lines is a row of very faint, round, 

 ■whitish dots (which in the figures are much more conspicuous) ; cilia dark brown 

 dashed with yellowish. Hind-wings pale smoky-brown, with the central lunule, a 

 slender transverse stripe beyond it, and the hind margin, darker ; cilia brownish- 

 white. 



As before remarked, from the comparative narrowness and acute- 

 ness of its fore-wings, their generally mottled appearance, and the 

 white-edged i-eniform stigma, it bears a curious resemblance to Ma- 

 mestra hrnssicce, but this is purely casual ; its character of markings is 

 that of O. exulis, and among the Shetland specimens is another with 

 the fore-wings a very little broader and more blunt, the edging of 

 the stigma yellow, and a larger proportion of ochreous among the 

 marbling, thus leading on to the more usual specimens from that 

 locality in which the ochreous lines and streaks are so characteristic. 

 The shape of the fore-wings in On/modes exulis is notoriously incon- 



