134 [Ji'"^'. 



undoubtedly give great zest to the interest in breeding tbe species, and 

 by many collectors are prized even more than the recurrent forms. 



Asymmetrical specimens are frequent in the species, some of them 

 being very peculiar, the wings of one side being so different from those on 

 the other side. To me the uiost interesting one I have was bred from 

 a cross between vars. varleijaia and luiiuhtta from a strain obtained 

 from a pairing of wild hini(lnfn several years previously. From that 

 strain nothing had been bred different from the two parent forms up to '^^ 



1917, in Avhich year appeared from it one moth having one side of a -] 



totally different type. Both the left-side wings are of the Ijlack-and- 

 white parent, but the riglit-side fore wing has a bi'oad yellow band 

 outside the median black band, and in the hind wings tlie markings and 

 distribution of the spots are also totally different from those of the left 

 hind wing. I am quite sure that no wild larva, or larva from any other 

 strain, had been introduced among them, so that the deep yellow colour 

 of the band and the other abnormal markings nuist have been inherent 

 during the several years I had bred them, and may be, for years in 

 their wild ancestors. I have still the same strain intact, and nothing 

 of the kind has appeared from it since. 



Another phase of variation, but a totally distinct one, which occa- 

 sionally shows up, is that in which specimens have only three wings. 

 I have placed three of these in my series — one in which the left fore 

 wing is wanting, one in which the left hind wing is absent, and the 

 other in which the right hind wing is absent. These emerged quite 

 naturally, and I cannot, even with a strong lens, detect the faintest 

 trace of a fourth wing in any of them. The missing wing is usually a 

 hind wing; indeed, the one I have mentioned is the only one I remember 

 to have seen with a fore wing absent. In every other respect they are 

 all fine specimens. 



A few days ago I visited the old garden from whence nearly all my 

 larvae have come, but with a careful examination could find scarcely 

 any trace that the larvae were feeding, and in fact only saw one, so the 

 species is evidently going to be rare again this year. And if the stock 

 has to be replenished by migrants from outside, it may be years before 

 the varieties become common again. I shall not be surprised, indeed, if 

 the extreme forms of nigrosparsata are now very rare for many yeaj's, 

 as I suspect they have been the products of the intei-breeding of the 

 species in the limited areas of the old gardens. But that this intei*- 

 breeding has not affected their size or robustness seems certain, as I 

 have seen no bigger specimens than out of that garden, nor in so large 



