142 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



M. r/».cm = ab. hrunnca. This only occurs, so far as I know, in 

 Britain as a very rare aberration. I have single specimens from 

 Bradfield and Carlisle. 



(4). The fulvous tint of No. 2 becomes in this redder, and the 

 central band straw-coloured, but the red and straw-coloured areas are 

 not restricted by the encroachment of the brownish-black ground 

 colour — var. i^irinifrra. This is probably the commonest British form. 

 My specimens came from Carlisle, Lincolnshire, Sandwich, West 

 Malvern, Penarth, Swansea, Basingstoke, and some of my Irish and 

 Scotch specimens fall here. 



(5). The bright straw-coloured and red series of spots contrast in 

 this form strongly with the black. Better than all description is Mr. 

 Kane's remark : " approaches, in its richest form, the character of the 

 continental M. inafurua." The central area is somewhat restricted. 

 I have specimens of this labelled " Delamere Forest (?)"; others 

 come from Ireland. It is, I should say, a rare form, at least in 

 England. This is in my opinion Birchall's var. hibernica, described 

 as " wings above black ; fore- wings ornamented with fulvous patches 

 arranged in a series near the hind margin, and with a number of 

 others in the middle, white or whitish straw-coloured, joined at the 

 inner margin, forming a blotch. The hind-wings with a broad 

 fulvous fascia along the hind margin (the fulvous marks on the narrow 

 black outer margin of examples of the type being indistinct or obsolete 

 in the variety) ; beneath pale fulvous with similar but indistinct 

 pattern." The bracketed portion is the crux, but I find that in all 

 the varieties occasional specimens have these marginal spots indistinct 

 or nearly obsolete, as Birchall remarks. There can be no doubt 

 Birchall described from very few specimens, perhaps only one picked 

 example of each sex ; but it is equally certain that he described the 

 Irish form, and that his general description is quite applicable. Mr. 

 Kane is dissatisfied with Mr. Birchall's description, and re-names the 

 form " most commonly met with in Ireland " as var. praedara. 



(6). The fulvous and straw-coloured areas constricted, and the 

 fulvous colour giving place somewhat to ochreous, and the straw- 

 colour duller = var. .scotica. This is a slightly darker form than the last, 

 but with the exception of intensity of colour, has the same general 

 characters. I only possess specimens from Aberdeenshire. Mr. Kane 

 records it as occurring in Ireland. 



(7). The fulvous and ochreous markings dull in colour and 

 restricted in size ; the transverse bands being rather series of spots 

 separated by the ground-colour, the area of which is much increased. 

 The whole insect, dull, dingy, and uniform = var meropc. I have a 

 short series of a form which is indistinguishable from the continental 

 merope, at least on the upper side, bred by the Rev. J. Seymour St. 

 John, from Somersetshire (Frome) larvte. They all appear to be a 

 little malformed, and I have no doubt that Mr. St. John produced by 

 some adverse treatment of the larvii:; or pupje what nature produces 

 under the harsher natural conditions which develop mcrapc in the 

 Alps, and at high altitudes or latitudes in other Continental localities. 



It would be possible perhaps to double the length of this article by 

 entering into details of aberrational forms and a consideration of the 

 variation of the underside. Two aberrations, however, can scarcely 

 be passed over, one, in which the two central transverse series of pale 



