VARIATION. 45 



W" A R I A T I N . 



Pakallel Variation in Larv.e and Imagines of Lasiocampa querous. 

 — With reference to the aberration of Lasiocawpa quercus, which I 

 exhibited at the Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society on 

 October 19th, 1908, and on which you make an Editorial note, and 

 ask for a scientific statement (antca, vol. xx., p. 272), all I can do 

 at present is to state the facts so far as they have gone, 

 and I should be glad to hear the opinion of someone of authority 

 on the subject. The larvre from which my aberrations were bred, were 

 taken on the Wallasey sandhills, on March 28th, 1907. Five of the 

 larvae taken on that day were very dark, almost black ; a number of the 

 light forms were also taken on that day. The dark larva? were kept 

 separate from the light, and they pupated in June, 1907. I noticed 

 that the cocoons of the dark larvae were very much darker than the 

 cocoons of the lighter variety, A male emerged on July 5th, 1908, 

 and, seeing that it was perfectly dark olive, I let it remain, hoping that 

 a female might emerge, an event which happened on the 9th, at 

 9.30 a.m.; this was also dark olive ; at noon the same day they paired, 

 and, on July 11th, she laid 117 eggs. Of these, on August 10th, 12 

 hatched; on the 11th, 22; on the 12th, 51; on the 18th, 12. The 

 larva) have moulted three times, and are now hybernating. They are 

 all very dark. Two of the dark larv;e taken on the sandhills, were 

 stung, and the third died. I should add that all the light larvjie found 

 at the same time produced imagines of normal colour. It will be 

 interesting now to watch what these will produce. — W. Bell, M.R.C.S., 

 J. P., Rutland House, New Brighton, Cheshire. Xoveinbcr tilst, 1908. 

 [These remarks are most interesting. It is to be hoped that the 

 dark larvte resulting from the dark imagines, will pass successfully 

 through the winter, and produce imagines. We shall be most interested 

 to hear from Dr. Bell the result of this experiment. — Ed.] 



TaPINOSTOLA ELYMI, AB. (? SATURATIOR, StGR.), IN BrITAIN. 111 



answer to Mr. Tutt's inquiry {Ent. Hec, xx., 267) whether the dark 

 form of this species, that Staudinger named satnratior, occurs in this 

 country, I may mention that a single male in my collection agrees with 

 Staudinger's later diagnosis in Stgr. and Rbl., Cat., i., p. 189, 

 no. 1915 (1901), and seems, therefore, clearly referable to ab. satnratior, 

 although I am unable, at present, to compare it with his original 

 description in Stett. Ent. Zeit., 1889, p. 47. His subsequent definition 

 [lor. cit.), is as follows : — " With the forewings darker, or darkly 

 streaked," and, in the individual under notice, although the ground 

 colour is hardly darker than normal, the costal half of the forewings 

 is mainly occupied by two broad, smoky-brown, longitudinal stripes, 

 united towards the base, but gradually diverging from before the 

 middle, leaving a broad streak of the pale ground colour between them. 

 Since the smoky-brown colour also forms a broad terminal band, which 

 reaches from the apex to the tornus, and in which the stripes are 

 merged posteriorly, it renders the forewings, as a whole, conspicuously 

 dark as compared with any other specimens that 1 have seen. This 

 individual Avas received from the late Mr. John E. Robson, by whom 

 it was bred in 1905, from a Hartlepool pupa. — Eustace R. Bankes, 

 M.A., Norden, Corfe Castle. December 1th, 1908. 



Variation of the Imaginal Form of Araschnia levana from one 



