RANDOM NOTES ON ZYGAENA EXULANS AND ITS VARIETIES. 259 



from tliose who have filled up that ])lank which causes a shock to some 

 fellows when they show another fellow their cabinet drawers. This 

 experience has been mine before now, so I only describe wliat I know 

 to be a fact. Perhaps some of my readers will say •' sour grapes ; " 

 may-be tliat is so — although I do not quite believe it. But though 

 Zygaena exulans has been so rare a British insect in the jDast, we have 

 changed all that now. Exhibitions galore of the species — nearly a 

 liundred in one exhibit — show that it has been obtained in gi-eat 

 abundance, and that everyone who wants to fill up that wretched 

 " blank " will soon be able to do so, if indeed, the consummation has 

 not already been reached. 



But whilst our friends at Braemar were catching and setting their 

 hundreds of Zi/<jaena exulans in this year of grace 1894, I myself had 

 the pleasure of seeing this fine interesting motli hurtling along the 

 high rocky slopes with its booming flight, or greedily fighting its friends 

 on the bright-tinted flowers of a clear-air'd Alpine mountain-side. I 

 do not know whether there was anj^thing in my personal appearance, 

 but it must be owned that Zygaena exulans would never discover itself 

 to me in the almost incredible niimbers, which, on two occasions, were 

 met with by my friend Dr. Chapman. 



The specimens obtained or observed, however, were very interesting, 

 and it is of these I would speak; and if my Scotch friends do not like 

 my comparing their wonderful Braemar specimens with the more vari- 

 able and sometimes much more beautiful specimens which exist on the 

 Dauphiny Aljis, or those of Savoy and Piedmont, they must neither put 

 it down to a one-sidedness on my j^art in drawing conclusions, nor to 

 a supcrfluit}^ of that natural modesty of which I possess so large a share, 

 but to the fact that I still have a great Iflank (which still causes a great 

 shock) in my cal^inet, waiting for those fine forms which evidentlv do 

 not occur at Braemar, but are probably waiting to be discovered else- 

 where on the heathery braes of the Scotch Highlands. 



The first British specimens of Zygaena exulans which I possessed, 

 were kindly given to me by my friend Mr. W. H. Tugwell in (I believe) 

 1886. The insect was at that time a great desideratum, and even 

 specimens not in the finest condition were eagerly welcomed. How much 

 we were indebted for a share in the results of the labour of those gentle- 

 men who first captured this species, and what trouble they liad to obtain 

 those early specimens, only those who have collected in outlying Alpine 

 districts know. The specimens which were given to me by j\Ir. Tugwell 

 were a little ruljbed, and corresponded excellently with Dr. White's 

 definition of what a Scotch Z. exidans (a somewhat dia])hanous form) 

 should be. They evidently belonged to the variety which Dr. White 

 created specially for these rather rubbed specimens, and which he called 

 var. suhochracea. But since then, Messrs. Eeid, Home and others have 

 put up on the ground for three or four years in succession and for a 

 considerable length of time, whilst Mr. Tugwell has also received con- 

 siderable consignments, and as a result, a great change has gradually 

 come over our notions of how a really fine Scotch Z. exulans ouglit to 

 look. 



My next experience in connection with the species was the receipt 

 of some specimens from the Swiss Alps, sent to me by Dr. Staudinger 

 and Professor Blachier of Geneva. These were comparatively finely 

 scaled insects, and, so far as I could judge, were largely females, altliougli 

 without the pale nerviires that the females of tlie Scotcli speciiurus 



