202 THE ENTOMOLOGIST S KECOKD. 



the subterminal is nearly always dark shaded internally, the border 

 deeply black dotted — sometimes, also, part of the border of the hind- 

 wings ; the stigmata filled up with darker colour than the ground ; and 

 the central shade is frequently well expressed. The orbicular stigma 

 is not generally so large as in amhigua, and is usually placed obliquely, 

 being elongate, not round ; the pale boxxlers of the stigmata are also 

 less narrow, and less clean cut. The insect is generally larger and more 

 strongly built than amhigua. Comj^ared with taraxaci, the hind- wings 

 are cleaner white, and such darker dusting as they do possess is 

 yellowish rather than greyish ; besides, the lighter, more straw-coloured 

 tone of the fore-wings, with the coarse black dusting already mentioned, 

 give it a totally different aspect from that species. Herr A. Fuchs, 

 who appears to have been one of the first entomologists since Treitschke's 

 time to give close attention to the breeding of super stes, and to its un- 

 doubted specific right, says (Stett. ent. Zeit., xlv., p. 261, etc.): — " In 

 distinguishing the moths of the group amhigua, saperstes, taraxaci, the 

 hind-wings must before all things be taken into consideration. (I). 

 Decidedly the whitest hind-wing is borne by both sexes of amhigua. 

 When von Heinemann (i., p. 431), recording the same observation, 

 adds thereto that the (white) hind-wings of the male amhigua are very 

 little, of the $ somewhat more strongly, dusted with brown-grey on 

 the nervures, towards the border, the state of the case is very well in- 

 dicated in these words, and especially the remark at the same place that 

 this brown-grey dusting appears the most distinctly at the apex of the 

 5 hind-wings. (2). Very different from the hind-wings of amhigua, 

 are those of superstes, which bear on a white ground a yellowish silky 

 gloss. Towards the border, appears on the nervures and at the apex, 

 a much more copious yellowish-grey dusting— not brown-grey as in 

 taraxaci — which is at least as strong in the ^ as in amhigua J , in the 

 2 decidedly stronger. Then, while amhigua J only appears a little 

 brown-grey about the tip, the J superstes has, at the border of the 

 hind- wings a dull yellowish-brown band, reaching from the tip as far 

 as the hinder angle, merged lu the ground colour towards the base, and 

 with indistinct traces of the two arched stripes. Through this dirty 

 tone-colour, the hind-wings of superstes 5 , remind one of darker 

 (J taraxaci. (3). As a?Ht/r/(fa has the lightest, so iara.cac/ has decidedly 

 the dullest, hind- wings of the group. These are in the ^ dirty ivhitish- 

 grey, at the border about the tip grey-brownish, in the $ brown-grey 

 almost throughout, with lighter base. Superstes is the largest species, 



with the broadest wings Taraxaci has the darkest unicolorous 



brown-grey fore-wings, with only fine markings." 



In the liheingau also, where Fuchs collected, the times of apjjear- 

 ance of superstes and amhigua differ, but I find that there is so much 

 irregularity in the appearance of some of these species in different 

 places and in different seasons, that we must not over-estimate the 

 importance of this ; it is, however, noteworthy that sujjerstes seems 

 everywhere to be single-brooded, and to appear jjretty regularly in July ; 

 while amhigua is generally double-brooded, its second brood not 

 appearing until the latter part of August, being fresh when, according 

 to Fuchs, only a few damaged stragglers of superstes still remain. 

 I tliink the double-broodedness of amhigua will turn out to be precisely 

 parallel to that of Leucania pallens and other well-known species, the 

 first emergence extending over a consideraltle period, and the second 



