VARIATION OF CERTAIN NOCTUIDES OCCURRING NEAR MONTROSE. 221 



Noctua (jlareosa. — The type is of an ashy-grey colour {British 

 Noctuac, etc., vol. ii., p. 108) with black markings ; ours are often 

 more red than black. We get none of the very pale forms, such as 

 I am informed occur at Sligo and some other localities, although 

 ab. Ju'braica, Avith the space between the two outer transverse lines of a 

 dark grey colour, does. The best of our aberrations are the dark examples, 

 culminating in their extreme forms in ab. sufma, Tutt [Brit. Xoct., etc., 

 ii.,p. 108). These lead up from a normally dark slate-grey form, gradually 

 losing the grey and assuming a blackish hue, with pale and very distinct 

 transverse lines, until they become quite melanic. The mahogany 

 hue, seen in some of these dark specimens, is due to the red, which is 

 typical of ab. rosea, being combined with the dark ground-colour. 

 Most of our dark specimens are of a dark blackish-grey hue, and not 

 the "rich dark brown colour," which Mr. Jenner Weir says is 

 characteristic of the Unst specimens, but this year several of these 

 dark mahogany forms appeared. 



Xi/lophasia nirea. — In Thr BritisJi Xortuae and their Varieties, Mr. 

 Tutt describes several aberrations of this species, and for some time I 

 considered that our dark forms were theab. aniihusta. ('owhmta, Haw., 

 however, although a dark reddish-brown form, has the reniform stigma 

 outlined in white, a form I have never seen ; the ab. comhusta, Hb., with 

 a reddish costa and ochreous markings, does appear here not un- 

 commonly ; the darkest form, however, which I at first considered to be 

 combiistais undoubtedly the ab. ni;/ro-ruhiiJa, described by Mr. Tutt from 

 Hebridean specimens. Of the pale section we get the type with a 

 broad pale (and in some specimens almost pure white) inner margin, 

 and also ab. ochrea. 



Dianthoecia consjwrsa. — All the D. consjjersa we take are 

 identical with the ab. mfusa, Tutt. The type does not occur here. 



Miselia oxyacanthae. — Our specimens are lighter than the type, 

 especially the terminal band, and have much less green, so that they 

 seem to be between the type and what Mr. Tutt calls ab. pallida. 

 They are not the latter, as they have streaks of green near the costa 

 and centre. In fact, ours is a light form of the type, with less green 

 than usual, and a paler terminal band. 



Reminiscences of the Tyrol. 



II. A July Holiday. 

 By FREDERICK C. LEMANN, F.E.S. 



In previous seasons, trips to the Basses- Alpes and other parts of 

 Southern France, the Pyrenees, Corsica, the Engadine, the Italian 

 Lakes, the Bernese Oberland, Hungary, etc., had all been fraught 

 with much interest, and had rendered me familiar with a very 

 respectable percentage of the European Khopalocera ; but this 

 summer I decided upon paying a visit to the Austrian Tyrol. By 

 great good luck I managed to secure the companionship of Dr. T. A. 

 Chapman, so that I was enabled to visit a country quite unknown to 

 me, and practically so to my travelling companion, under most 

 favourable auspices. 



Leaving England on the morning of the 6th July, we travelled 

 straight through to Zurich, resting there one night, and travelling on 



