BOJIBYX QtfERCUS AND BOMBYX CALLUN.B. 127 



of any reasonable being that when Eclwd. Newman wrote these descrip- 

 tions, he considered the two insects as distinct species. But when 

 he pubHshed his work, British Moths, only two years subsequently, he 

 simply introduced rallunac in one line, under the heading of B. quemis, 

 as a variety, without comment, and I consequently searched The 

 Entnmohuiist, of which he was then the editor, to ascertain if he had 

 anywhere explained in its pages the reason for his sudden change of 

 front. My search resulted in the discovery of a short paragraph in 

 that magazine, vol. iii., p. 27, the year after the life-histories were 

 published, which runs as follows : — " In my differentiation of B<>iiihi/.v 

 qiiercm and Bombij.v callnnae, I omitted a character which Mr. 

 Doubleday has long observed; the " so-called " 5. callunae has a 

 conspicuous white spot in the centre of the fore-wings on the under- 

 side, which is wanting in B. quercus, and, as callunae of Palmer is 

 certainly the que re as of Linnasus, it is desirable to resort to the 

 Linnaean name, and the querciis of Stephens in our cabinets is thus 

 left without a name, and I suggest it should be called fa)inliaris, etc." 

 This leaves us in the dark as to how he arrived at the conclusion that 

 the callwuw of Palmer was " certainly " the qufrcus of Linnaeus, but it 

 is a matter of history that his conclusion has been accepted ever since.''' 



The title of this paper was suggested to me in consequence of my 

 observing the type and variety constantly mixed up in cabinets, un- 

 known to their owner. I have consulted the " London List," which has 

 been prepared by the Society, and find that there is no record therein 

 of B. callunae having ever occurred in the London district, whilst Mr. 

 Fenn is the only correspondent who reports B. ijuercus in the South - 

 East District, and he says the species is nearly extinct there now. 

 There is also a statement by Mr. Arthur Rose, in the I'^nt. Becard, 

 that B. quercus occurs on the border of Epping Forest, in the lanes 

 round Sewardstone, just outside the London district. Thanks, 

 however, to several friends, I venture to think that after you have 

 heard what the differences are, and have seen the several exhibits 

 this evening, you will not have much difficulty in future in distinguishing 

 the variety from the type, and I propose to make a few remarks upon 

 Newman's differentiation. 



First, as to the "time of appearance." Newman gives May for the 

 variety, and July and August for the type, and with this my own 

 experience coincides. In Yorkshire, the type occurs only on the coast, 

 the specimens found inland being, invariably, I>. callunae, and until 

 I got larvcB from Clacton, I had not had any experience in breeding 

 the type. In breeding 7>. callunae I found that the imagines emerged 

 a little before or after the 1st of June, and there is a fact impressed 

 on my mind in support of that statement which I may mention, vh., 

 that on the day I left home, in 1890, for my trip to the Himalayas, 

 — May 15th, I found a male B. callunae emerged in my breeding 

 cage, which I put in a killing bottle, and set on my return in 

 December the same year. And there is further evidence of the 

 appearance of B. callunae in May, in Mr. Buckler's work on larvje. 

 On page 57, vol. iii., after describing the larva of B. quercus, he states 

 that hehada pairof B. quercus, incop., sent to him onAugust 25 th, 1875. 



* Our contributor has missed the point. He should have given us Palmer's 

 original description of callunae, and the Linnaean description of B. quercus ; then 

 we could have drawn our own conclusions. The former is to be found in the 

 Zoologist, 1847, p. 1656, the latter in the Sijstema Naturae, xth edition, 498.— Ed, 



