VAKIATION. 21 



In Belgium it is very rare, but has been taken at Lanklaer, in Catnpine 

 and the Hamburg. In Austria, it occurs at Oberweiden, and used 

 formerly to be found at Felixdorf, also at Liesing ; further east, in 

 Hungary and Servia, it is fairly common. In Spain, it is recorded 

 from the mountains of Aragon and of Cuenca, at Benabarre and 

 Serrania de Cuenca; according to Bolivar it is found among long grass, 

 the green forms near rivers, and the rarer brown form in cultivated 

 fields. The Spanish specimens are bigger and brighter than those 

 from eastern Europe, and have received from Bolivar the varietal 

 name assoi. 



It has so erratic and wide a distribution that we may hope to 

 discover it in Great Britain, and it would make a very handsome and 

 notable addition to our list. 



(To be continued.) 



W"ARIA T 10 N . 



Dark aberrations of Abraxas sylvata. — I took several Abraxas 

 sylvata (iihnata) in Bucks, at the end of June, this year, of the 

 leaden-coloured aberration. This, Mr. Prout says, is quite new for the 

 south of England, the form, so far, being confined principally to 

 Yorkshire. As a matter of fact, I took specimens varying from almost 

 pure white to this bluish-leaden form; some of the aberrations were of 

 a brownish tinge ; typical specimens simply occur in hundreds in the 

 locality. — C. P. Pickett, F.E.S., 99, Dawlish Road, Leyton, Essex. 

 October Qth, 1906. [It would be well if our contributor, or someone 

 else interested in the variation of our British Geometrids, could com- 

 pare the Buckinghamshire examples with those described at length 

 from Yorkshire, and named [Ent. lice, ix., pp. 305-7). It is clear that 

 Mr. Pickett has the abs. stiff km and obscura, possibly he also has the 

 other named forms. — Ed.] . 



Description of an aberration of Fidonia conspicuata. — During the 

 past twenty years I have captured and bred a good many examples of 

 this interesting species, but, with the exception of two specimens of the 

 second brood, bred in July, 1899, I have not noticed much in the way 

 of variation among them, the usual departure from the normal type 

 consisting in the abundance, or otherwise, and distribution, of the 

 black dusting on the orange-yellow wings, but this has never been of 

 sufficient importance to entitle the individual to a varietal name — 

 however, the two specimens alluded to above are certainly worthy of 

 that distinction, and may be described as F. conspicuata ab. fumata, 

 n. ab. In this variety the orange-yellow is replaced by smoky 

 umber-brown tinged with orange, and dusted with black atoms, as on 

 the hi nd win us and portions of forewings of typical specimens. It is a 

 peculiar and striking-looking aberration, and must be very rare, as these 

 are the only two I have seen among the several hundreds that have 

 passed through my hands. I am sorry to say that I am afraid this 

 species has become extinct in the two or three restricted localities where 

 it used to occur in Suffolk. I have not seen it, in a wild state, since 

 June, 1901, and, although I looked for it in 1902, 190H, and 1901, I 

 did not meet with it, either in the larval or perfect state, and in the 

 latter year found most of the broom destroyed, and a good deal of the 

 ground broken up, and have not been there since. The only chance 

 of its survival in either of these localities remains in the habit of the 



