6 tHE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



A critical resume of the arguments for and against Tephrosia 



bistortata (crepuscularia) and Tephrosia crepuscularia (biundularia) 



being considered distinct species. '•" 



By J. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 

 {Continued from vol. viii., p. 287). 



The third and most strenuous upholder of the one species idea is 

 Mr. C. G. Barrett. His utterances on the matter have been frequent, 

 and his opinion appears to have been based on the following con- 

 siderations : — (1). Mr. Barrett received, in 1886, from Derbyshire, 

 "specimens of the dark grey variety of what" he "should have 

 called biundularia, but they were taken on April 12th and 24th 

 respectively," en/o, they "appear at the time for crepuscularia.'' 

 They are " of a dark grey colour, and bear no more resemblance to 

 one form (normal crepuscularia) than to the other (normal hiun- 

 dularia)," errfo, " if we still continue to look upon crepuscxdaria and 

 biundularia as distinct species, we shall, for the sake of consistency, be 

 compelled to make one or two more species to admit these grey and 

 blackish forms " [E.^I.M., xxiii., pp. 41-42). One suggestion at once 

 occurs : If the two specimens did not more closely resemble biundu- 

 laria than crepuscularia, why would Mr. Barrett have called them 

 " biundularia certainly," had they not been " taken on April 12th and 

 24th ? " Records of T. biundularia in April have been frequent of late 

 years in the EnUm. Record. (2). Professor Zeller, in 1878, wrote to 

 Mr. C. G. Barrett : — " I wonder why Staudinger separates these ; I 

 deny their specific right not allowing the time of appearance to prove 

 it. With us both are together, and, moreover, a dark variety." At 

 the same time he sent Mr. Barrett some " dark grey specimens," with 

 " a challenge to pronounce as to which they belonged." The " dark 

 grey specimens " suggest the ordinary German type, the true bistortata 

 of Goetze (vide, Prout, Ent. Rec, vol. viii., p. 78), quite different from 

 the two seasonal forms of crepuscularia, and from biundularia. Mr. 

 Barrett failed to do so, and " the examination was deferred." I am 

 under the impression that Mr. Barrett has since told me that he then 

 had no Scotch specimens of crepuscularia at the time (although 

 Doubleday knew the Scotch form well). The Scotch form is very 

 near the German (with a sprinkling of individuals leaning to the 

 southern spring form (var. abietaria, Haw.), and had Mr. Barrett had a 

 glance at any of these he would have recognised the German form at 

 once.o (8). Mr. Barrett writes {E.M.M., xxiii., p. 87) :— " The 

 supposition that crepuscularia," as distinguished from biundularia, " is 

 double-brooded is a mistake. I have taken second-brood specimens 

 of both forms in July or August, in the south of Surrey, and have 

 them now before me." As the insects were captured wild, this is, 

 of course, a pure assumption. We may fairly ask Mr. Barrett to tell 

 us how he separated and distinguished the second-brood specimens of 

 what he considered these two species. (4). On June 11th, 1886, Mr. 

 Barrett took an odd specimen of biundidaria in Staffordshire, " which 

 actually agreed far better with crepuscularia, only differing in the 



• The Continental specimens exhibited by Mr. Barrett at the meeting at which 

 this paper was read were a mixture of the two species, some of which were typical 

 r. bittortata, and others were dark aberrations of T. crepuscularia {biundularia). 



