128 f"'"''^' 



THE HUDDEESFIELD VARIETIES OP ABRAXAS OROSSULARIATA, 

 WITH DESCRIPTION OF A NEW VARIETY. 



BY G. T. POBETTT, F.L.S. 



Perhaps in no localit}' in the United Kingdom is Abraxas 

 gross7ilariafa known to vary so much as in the Huddersfield district. 

 Of the named forms we have no less than thirty-three ; and if we 

 include the forms of varleyata, to Avhich the Rev. G. H. Raynor has 

 attempted to give other names, and if the various fcnuns of nigro- 

 sparsata were named in the same way, the numher would be very largely 

 increased. But I do not in the least approve of the naming of forms of 

 a variety wdiich is so distinct in itself as is varleyaia ; there is no 

 possibilit}' of mistaking them for anything but pure varleyata, and to 

 my mind nothing is gained by further differentiating them, and it ought 

 not to be done. For this reason I am content to leave the still more 

 numerous forms of nigrosparsata vmder the one name. 



It was in 190o that I became specially interested in tliis species, 

 and every year since then I have had a considerable ninnber of larvae 

 and pupae — one year as many as six thousand wild ones alone. And I 

 may say at once that it has proved the most fascinating single species I 

 ever touched. Some of the varieties bred have been most remai'kable ; 

 and the time the imagines are emerging is always a very exciting period, 

 as one never knows what extraordinary form may appear in the cages at 

 any moment. Practically all my wild larvae have been obtained year 

 after j^ear from one market garden just outside the town of Hudderfield. 

 In that garden for years was a considerable area of ground filled with 

 very old, neglected gooseberry bushes, vxnder which the grass had been 

 allowed to grow, and among which tiie larvae hibernated without 

 molestation in immense numbers. The stems of many of the bushes had 

 grown very thick, and were blackened with age, and on them the larvae 

 varied immensely in colour and appearance. From the ordinary form 

 they were of all shades to perfectly black, many being black with more 

 or less yellow markings, and others having clear longitudinal dark stripes ; 

 but the colour of the larvae had no influence on the resulting imagines, 

 the blackest larvae producing as big a proportion of ordinary moths as 

 the most ordinary larvae, and vice versa. For several consecutive 3'ears, 

 too — about five, I believe — a considerable percentage of the pupae were 

 uniformly glossy black, without any trace of the usual golden rings, 

 but these also jjroduced any form of the moth. One year the pro- 

 prietor of the garden threatened to do away with the old bushes, but 



