8 THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



was obtained from the coast, although Mr. Threlfall {Entoui. 

 XX., p. 65,) says that his specimens came from the " woods 

 and lanes near Witherslack." I compared one of Mr. Threl- 

 fall's specimens with Mr. Stainton's (principally Continental) 

 series, and it did not appear to tally with them ; but afterwards 

 receiving specimens captured in Silesia, I could detect no 

 reliable point of difference, and became satisfied that the 

 Witherslack yz^?/<:^^//« and the Silesian junctella were identical. 

 The protean semidccandrella has a reddish (almost orange) 

 form which runs it close, but a long series shows that they are 

 distinct enough. In i88g, when the Messrs. Salvage were 

 collecting at Forres, they captured specimens in every way 

 identical with the Lancashire and Silesian species. I have 

 two of their specimens, and Mr. W. H. B. Fletcher sent me 

 fourteen specimens which he had received from them. 

 Strange to say, Messrs. Hodgkinson and Threlfall always 

 maintained that their species hybernated ; all the specimens 

 taken by the Messrs. Salvage were hybernated ones. With 

 the Witherslack, Silesian, and Forres specimens (all evidently 

 the same species) before me, their perfect distinctness from all 

 the other members of Lita was very clear although difficult to 

 define ; the insect was most closely allied to seviidecandrclla, 

 but was rather stouter and had the characteristic orange spot 

 before the fascia well defined, but what struck me most was 

 the character of the fascia ; \n junctella the fascia is particularly 

 constant, being either straight or very slightly curved, but 

 with no distinct angulation, while in seniidecandrella the fascia 

 is almost always distinctly angulated, although the latter 

 species presents some variations in this character, and some 

 specimens have the angulation very slight compared with 

 others. Mr, W. H. B. Fletcher also writes (comparing these 

 species) : — " It seems to me that the northern moths have 

 both antennae and palpi darker than the others. It is not 

 fair, however, to compare hybernated specimens with bred 

 ones." Besides the difference in the habitats of these species, 

 jnnctella being a wood or hedge-frequenting species and obtained 

 from tree-trunks, while semidecandrella is obtained from our 

 bleak sandhills, and has to be disturbed from the marram 

 grass, junctella occurs later than its ally. The latter {semi- 

 dccandrella) is well out in July, and so far as we know does not 

 hybernate ; the former appears in August, and the hybernated 

 specimens are taken on tree-trunks in the following spring. 

 There is no doubt the name junctella was a misnomer. 



