LUPERINA (?) (aPAMEA) GUENEEI, DOUBLEDAY, AS A SPECIES. 91 



reappearance of L. iiueneei, a specimen having been sent him by 

 Mr. Baxter from St. Anne's-on-Sea, Lancashire. In the short article, 

 Mr. South comes to the conclusion that Mr. Baxter's specimen is a 

 connecting link between L. testacea and /.. nicherUi (or as it was 

 called by some, L. testacea var. nicherUi). Possibly we may here again 

 assume the faulty continental identification of the forms sent over as 

 L. nickerUi. At all events, the conclusion come to by Mr. South only 

 increased the confusion. 



Mr. Tutt again took up the subject at the meeting of the Citj' of 

 London Entomological Society on March 19th, 1891 (reported by 

 himself in the Ent. Record, vol. 2, pp. 20-21), when he exhibited the 

 specimen taken by Mr. Baxter, combated in detail the view of Mr. R. 

 South, that (jueneei was a form of nickerlii, and showed that the 

 description of the latter species given on p. 271 of the Ent. L'ecord, 

 vol. xxii., did not agree in detail with the original description of 

 nicherUi by its describer, Freyer. But his remark that Mr. South's 

 " connection of Mr. Baxter's specimen with (jueneei was unwarranted," 

 clearly proved that, although he had the true iiueneei before him, his 

 conception of ijueneei was based, not on the actual specimens previously 

 captured, but on the false assumption that f/ucneei was a variety of 

 testacea, and closely resembled it, in spite of the clear judgment of 

 both Guenee and Doubleday as to its specific distinction from both 

 species. 



Subsequently, in the same year, Mr. Tutt described this form as L. 

 testacea var. incerta {Brit. Noctuae, vol. i., p. 140), which name, how- 

 ever, cannot stand, as that specimen, as well as another taken at the 

 same place in 1891, are both typical specimens of the forms actually 

 described by Doubleday, of which one is at present in the British 

 Museum collection at South Kensington. 



Mr. C. G. Barrett in his Brit. Lep., vol. iv., p. 335. etc., 1897, 

 carries us no further, merely making a resume of the generally 

 received opinion. 



In Staudiufiers ('atalo(/ue, p. 168 (1901), (jueneei is still treated as a 

 var. of L. testacea, allowing one to assume that the species is unknow^n 

 on the continent of Europe, otherwise it would undoubtedly have been 

 given specific rank. 



It was not until the autumn of the year 1909, that the question 

 was again re-opened by the capture by Mr. Baxter of numerous 

 specimens of a Luperina quite referable to Doubleday 's L. (jueneei, 

 although not absolutely identical with the previously recorded speci- 

 mens. Examples of these were submitted to Mr. R. South, and he still 

 maintained that testacea, jueneei, and nickerUi were forms of one and 

 the same species.''' Subsequently, at his own suggestion, the genitalia 

 were examined and compared with those of L. nickerUi and L. testacea. 

 In the Entowolojist, vol. xlii., p. 289-292 (1909), Mr. South, having 

 been fully convinced by the results of the examination of the genitalia, 

 at once adopted the specific stability of L. jueneei, and gave the history 

 of the species in short, and diagnosed the forms sent him b}' Mr. 

 Baxter under the name var. baxteri, at the same time giving the 

 results of the examination and comparison of the genitalia by Mr. 

 F. N. Pierce, and illustrating his contribution by photographs of the 



• Ent., xlii., p. 26 (1909). 



