LUPEPJNA GUKXEEI, DOUBLEDAY, AS A SPECIES. 269 



The readiness with which larvse brought in in midwinter at once 

 become active and begin feeding, makes it highly probable that the 

 larv;e do feed during the winter if weather allows, and therefore also 

 probably may be found in open winters in more than one instar, that, 

 in fact, they do not hibernate in so strict a sense as do those species 

 that cannot be "forced," till a fair experience of winter has affected 

 them. 



Luperina (?) (Apamea) gueneei, Doubleday, as a species, and as a 



British species. 



By F. N. PIERCE, F.E.S. 

 I have been exceedingly interested in reading Mr. H. J. Turner's 

 paper with the above title. I cannot yet say that I fully agree with 

 the conclusions he has drawn. Knowing the great difficulty with 

 which Mr. South and I secured the five specimens of L. nicherlii, and 

 the source from which they came, I feel that I should wish to know 

 before making up my mind, from whence Dr. Chapman procured the 

 four specimens of "undoubted" L. nickerlii which Mr. Turner 

 mentions. Dr. Chapman states that " these four not only appear to 

 agree with the description and figure of L. nickerlii, but are quite 

 distinct from L. testacea." One would like to know how it is, if Freyer's 

 published description and figure of L. nickerlii agree with L. iiueneei, 

 that in all these years, this fact has not been recognised. Further, a 

 provincial like myself is surprised that long before this, experts 

 examining the series in the National Museum, have never been struck 

 during the discussion as to the identity of L. (jueneei, with the close 

 resemblance between the series of L. nickerlii and the single type 

 specimen of L. gueneei in the same collection, which appears to be so 

 very evident to Mr. Turner. When Mr. South and I worked to 

 procure specimens of L. nickerlii from the continent, we were 

 confronted with the statement that L. nickerlii had been extinct for 

 some 50 years, therefore, w^hen we obtained specimens from an old 

 collection labelled L. nickerlii and presumed to have been taken by 

 Herr Nickerl himself, the greatest care w^as taken to record this fact 

 [Entoiuoloijiat, vol. xlii., December 1909, p. 292). Now the reader of 

 the F'utom()lu(/ist's llecord is asked to accept the statement that the four 

 unauthenticated (so far as is stated in the paper in question) specimens 

 of L. nickerlii without locality, data, etc., of Mr. Turner's prove that 

 Freyer in 1845 described and figured specimens of L. (jueneei as L. 

 nickerlii, "the figure of which is wooden in the extreme, perfectly 

 useless for the purpose of identification, and absolutely unlike the real 

 moth " (Turner, Knt. Bee. Inc. cit. p. 172), when he had only specimens 

 of L. testacea before him ! 



What real moth '? why the mysterious four " undoubted " specimens 

 of L. //(f6'»e^/ which Mr. Turner asks us to believe are L. nickerlii ! 

 Mr. Turner notes in the National Collection that not a single L. testacea 

 has the same shape of wing as L. (jueneei, but states that South's 

 figures {Entdwolojist, vol. xlii., plate vii., figs. 1 and 2) of L. nickerlii 

 seem to be that species, i.e., L. nickerlii, yet Dr. Chapman {Knt. liec, 

 loc. cit., p. 202) states that "the best figures I know of L. nickerlii are in 

 Mr. Turner's plate {Ent. Uec, vol. xxiii., pi. iii., figs. 1 and 2)." Now 

 I ask anyone to compare by tracing on a piece of tissue paper the 

 shape of the wings in the two figures, when it will be seen that they 



