EEEBIA ^THIOPS AND ITS VARIATION. 19 



same as the writer has done) netting- and examining- hundreds of this 

 insect for aberrations, we shall come to the conclusion that there is a 

 great deal more to be done with one species only of the butterflies than 

 most of us imagine. However, to return to my subject, the ground 

 on which I collected is the most southern in England, so far as I know, 

 where /*.'. aethiops is taken, and lies about 30 miles north of Bradford, 

 the elevation being some 700 or 800 feet above the sea-level, and the 

 grassy openings in a large wood the favourite haunts of the species. 

 Referring to the paper already mentioned, we notice that all the speci- 

 mens exhibited — some 320 — were either Scotch or European, and as 

 mine are all English, they should prove interesting from the point 

 of view of comparison. 



To begin with, I may say all the specimens are very uniform in 

 size, the females slightly larger than the males, as a rule, and the 

 general colour of both sexes is of a rich velvety black-brown, with the 

 bands well developed. On examining the uppersides of both sexes I 

 find there is no specimen in which the double ocellated spot, or the 

 spot in section 5 of the forewings, is not present, whilst none have 

 more than six on the fore- and five on the hindwings, with three as 

 the least in both cases. On the undersides, five seems to be the most 

 in both cases, Avith two as the least on the hindwings only. Taking 

 the uppersides of the males first, only three specimens have four spots 

 developed on all four Avings ; two have four on the fore- and three on 

 the hindwings, and some in both sexes are unequally spotted, having 

 four on the right and three on the left, and rice versa, and these I have 

 labelled ab. inequcdi^. Besides these, there is a form in which the 

 bands on all four wings are broken up into little rings surrounding the 

 ocellated spots, which gives the specimens a very dark appearance 

 when compared with the type, and these I call ab. nvjra. In all, only four 

 answer to this description, with a fifth, which is a very extreme form, 

 and practically comes under the heading of ab. ohsoleta (Tutt, Brit. 

 Ihim., p. 432), and Avhich I recorded in Ent. Record, 1899, p. 269. 

 On the forewings the black spots and white eyes are very small indeed, 

 with only a few red scales appearing in sections 1 and 2. On the 

 hindwings the spots and eyes, with a few red scales surrounding each, 

 are so very minute indeed that a magnifying glass has to be used to 

 make them out at all clearly. In addition to this, the whole ground 

 colour has more of a grey tone about it, and is not nearly so rich as 

 in the type. This brings us to the females, and by far the most 

 interesting specimen I possess is the one recorded in Ent. Benird, 

 1900, p. 297. On the forewings the six spots are arranged in sections 



1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, a very rare occurrence indeed; and, as regards the 

 uppersides of the hindwings, and the undersides of both the fore- and 

 hindwings, there are five spots developed in every case, making in all 

 a total of 42 spots for this insect. Others have five developed in 

 sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and two have it in sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. These 

 two, with the previous one already mentioned, are the only three 

 examples that have the spot developed in section 1, out of many 

 hundreds that must have passed through my hands, thus bearing out 

 what Mr. Tutt says, viz., that it is more of a Continental than an 

 English form. Those having four spots are all, without exception, 

 placed in sections 2, 3, 4, 5, as also those with three spots in sections 



2, 3, 5. ^Ye now come to the form corresponding with that of the 



