I 



VARIATION 269 



Zetterstedt writes : — " Similar to N. brunnea. Fab. ox JV. fragarice, Bork., 

 but certainly distinct, it is so much smaller, etc." {Insecta Lapponica, 

 941). At the same time, ordinary 7^^//? w are taken side by side with it 

 in Norway, but these are considered perfectly distinct by Scandinavian 

 lepidopterists ; vide Entom. Tidsk/ift, 1S85, p. 53. Staudinger writes 

 of conflua : — " Perhaps an Alpine and northern variety oi festiva or a 

 Darwinian species," and gives as localities " Northern Europe, Silesian 

 Mountains, the Alps, Iceland and Labrador" {Catalog, p. 83). Of 

 these, the specimens from the Silesian Mountains and the Alps are 

 probably only conJluaASke vars. of festiva, but this is not necessarily so. 

 My friend, Mr. Reid, I know, believes it possible that the higher 

 mountainous districts in Perth and North Scotland might produce the 

 real Shetlandic form, but up to the present time, I have not seen any 

 from the Scotch mainland. With regard to these Scotch festiva, which 

 we have been accustomed to call conflua, Mr. A. Home of Aberdeen 

 writes : — " I am now convinced that this variety does not occur in 

 Aberdeenshire, nor, in fact, in any of the northern counties of Scotland. 

 I have taken IV. festiva in, I think, all the counties from Kincardineshire 

 up to and including Orkney, but they do not appear to be smaller or 

 paler at any one place than another. At Forres, the majority are of a 

 red colour. In Professor Trail's List of the Lepidoptera of the Dee 

 (Aberdeenshire) is found the following : — ' N. festiva, abundant, rather 

 local' ' N. conflua, abundant.' I think this is the principal cause of 

 Aberdeen collectors sending away their specimens as N conflua " {in 

 litt.) ; whilst Mr. Reid writes : — " N. festiva has been sent out as N. 

 conflua by many Aberdeen collectors for ' exchange ' purposes, and the 

 fact that festiva never figured in the ' Exchange List ' speaks for itself, 

 besides I have been told by a collector, that ' if we call them festiva, 

 we should never get rid of them.' Professor Trail's list, however, has 

 much to answer for in perpetuating the blunder. Although some 

 collectors have worked a great part of the northern counties of Scotland, 

 I do not think the high mountains have ever been worked for conflua. 

 I have no doubt, the narrow-winged, unicolorous form occurs freely in 

 such localities. Mr. Tait of Inverurie, has a few which he captured in 

 Aberdeenshire. I have taken them myself on some of our high moors, 

 and I have seen others that have been captured high on our hills. I 

 cannot say whether the variety has been captured in the mountains of 

 Perthshire " {in litt.). Mr. Maddison writes : — " My specimens of N. 

 conflua from Lapland, appear to differ slightly from my Morayshire and 

 other Scotch specimens, in their somewhat paler colour and narrower fore 

 wings, but I cannot say that the difference appears to be much marked " 

 {in litt.) ; whilst Mr. Sydney Webb says : — " If we can claim conflua at 

 all, it seems to me that it must be through the Shetland specimens and 

 not through the Aberdeenshire or Perthshire ones. Stress is particularly 

 laid, on the Continent, on the narrow fore wing, and certainly the 

 Shetland specimens possess this in a marked degree" (/« ////.). The 

 true festiva as well as conflua occurs in the Shetland Isles. 



We may now consider them separately, (i) Noctua,\Jvax\., festiva, 

 Hb. Under this name I include all our British forms except the 

 cofiflua from the Shetland Isles. The variation in ground colour 

 extends from a pale whitish-grey to a deep red, and in markings from 

 exceedingly well-developed blarV quadrate marks between the stigmata 



