220 THK entomologist's record. 



noon's airing, which it occasionally takes at Deal, is the remnant 

 of a very old habit which was ac(iuired by it ages ago — perhaps before 

 it had spread so far north and west as England. 



An uninteresting, invariable, dowdy sort of moth, you mentally 

 ejaculate, as you look over your series of " four " or " six," or even 

 " half-a-rovv." Don't believe it I It's one of the most interesting little 

 follows in existence — " in existence," mind, not in your cabinet. Why, 

 your six specimens are all absolutely alike, all males too, no wonder 

 you do not see much to interest you in them. They are in fine 

 condition and well set, you say. Two very good and necessary things, 

 I must own, but still in spite of that you yourself think them " dowdy, 

 invariable and uninteresting." 



At any rate, if you consider beauty to be idealised in a Tiger moth, 

 you are (|uite correct in saying that this moth is dowdy ; but invariable 

 and uninteresting it is not. Why, I have already proved that it is 

 interesting — if not to your satisfaction, at least to my own — but I will 

 prove it more full}^ yet. Let us consider its variability now. You 

 have heard that the specimens captured on the Continent differ from 

 onr British form ; but the latter varies too. Fi'om bright golden to 

 black — well, not quite black —is a very fair range of colour, but there 

 is an incredulous smile on your lips which suggests that you think 

 I am joking. I am not, though. Bright golden-yellow to almost 

 black is the extent to which the variation in the colour of L. pygmaeola 

 extends in the specimens exhibited to you, which were all captured 

 on the Deal sandhills, so that the species can in no wa^^ be considered 

 an invariable insect. 



Most of us believe in evolution now — there are lots of things 

 evolutionists tell us that I don't quite believe, but 1 do believe in 

 evolution. Probably all the younger men who have been brought 

 up in this age of books believe in evolution sufficiently to agree with 

 me that all the Footmen have sprung, more or less remotely, from one 

 ancestral type. A lady friend of mine hated Darwin (or rather his 

 name) - she said she hated him ; his works were immoral and inimical 

 to all religious belief, she used to say. What work of Darwin's gave you 

 that impression ? I once ventured to ask. " What work — no work!" she 

 exclaimed, " fancy me reading one of his books." I could not fancy 

 it, V)ut if the lady had read it, and if she could have understood only a 

 little of it here and there, she might have been a broader-minded 

 woman. Well, where was I ? Oh yes, I remember, I suggested that 

 you would agree with me that the Footmen all sprang originall}^ from 

 one ancestral form, although tlvey are now so very difi'erent. Yet, 

 as you know, they are in some respects very similar. There are the 

 unicolorous sororcula, deplana and var. atramineola ; then there are the 

 species with a yellow costa — lurideola, complana and, rather less strongly 

 marked, yriseola. Then in colour we have the bright golden sororcula, 

 var. strariimeola and quadra ? ; the browner-yellow deplana ; the leaden- 

 grey lurideola, griseoln, complana and quadra S ; the spotted muscerda ; 

 the black rnbricollis. You observe that the difference in colour in G. quadra 

 is sexual — the male is dove-grey, the female orange ; in L. griseola the 

 same colorations occur but are in no wise sexual, and so on. Now 

 these characters, both of colour and markings, which recur in these 

 allied siJecies under different conditions, show certain relationshij^s, 



