8 THE entomologist's record. 



white.' " It does not seem to Mr. Barrett to have been illogical to 

 describe hinndnlaria as a whitish form of crepioicularia, when Sir 

 J. T. D. Llewelyn had actually separated the species for ten years, 

 showed that the melanic tendency to variation had developed indepen- 

 dently in the two species, even in the same locality, and that, when, 

 at last, hinndnlaria did develop a tendency to melanism, its melanic 

 form was characteristically distinct from that of the earlier species. 



In October of this year (1896), Mr. Barrett made a more startling 

 addition to his views, in which he recanted his former opinion, when he 

 wrote : — " We know that the hinndnlaria which appear in May are not 

 the offspring of the April cnjin-^cularia," for he now says (A'.3/.il/., 

 xxxii., p. 229): — "I want emphatically to draw attention to these 

 details — the second brood of the brown crepuacularia is obviously 

 biundularia ; and, moreover, the evidence produced shows clearly that 

 the frequent assertion of absolute single-broodedness in the white 

 hinndnlaria form is erroneous." The first assumption is astounding. 

 The second is based on the fact that Mrs. Bazett was given specimens 

 of a I'cjdiroftia, taken by a keeper in July last, at light, in a wood in 

 which Mrs. Bazett had never seen crejmscnlaria, but in which biiuvhi- 

 laria occurs abundantly. To come to the conclusion that these must, 

 therefore, be the second brood of hinndnlaria, is surely playing ducks 

 and drakes with scientific enquiry. 



Moreover, we are constrained to get one more explanation from 

 Mr. Barrett. Why should the sight of these " very pretty, neat, white 

 creatures, not more than one-half the size of the parents,"*-' lead Mr. 

 Barrett to conclude that they are, " in markings and colour, typical 

 southern hiundularia " ? Are we to take it that he had never seen 

 similar specimens before ? But this can hardly be, for ten years 

 before Mr. Barrett had written {K.M.M., xxiii., p. 86): — "Another 

 point has been put forward, the double-broodedness of crcpnxcnlaria 

 as distinguished from the other, which is single-brooded ; but this is 

 a mistake. I have taken second-brood specimens of both forms in 

 July and August, in the south of Surrey, and have them now before 

 me." What Mr. Barrett had before him, as the second brood of these 

 species in 1886, it is difficult to say. One thing is moderately cer- 

 tain ; they could scarcely have been the second brood of crepmcnlaria, 

 or he could have hardly expressed his surprise in such measured terms 

 in 1896. Mr. Barrett treats Mrs. Bazett's discovery, that the second 

 brood of T. crepnscularia consists of small, white specimens, as a 

 new discovery, when, as a matter of fact, the knowledge goes back to 

 Stephens and Wood, who both described two forms of this second 

 brood as consonaria and strii/nlaria. Yet this explanation is prac- 

 tically denied us, for there is another remark made by Mr. Barrett as 

 to his knowledge of the second broods of both species. We read, Proc. 

 Sth. TAind. Knt. Soc, 1890, p. 25) that Mr. Barrett said that in his 

 experience he " had found the form hinndnlaria to produce a second 

 brood as frequently as the other." As to a second brood of hinndnlaria, 

 in nature, it is practically unknown, and hence, if Mr. Barrett really 

 has specimens of the second brood of this species, we shall see them, 

 I trust, to-night, f Still my own series shows much variation in the 



* By-the-bye, what is known of the parents of these individuals which were 

 captured wild, at light? 



+ The specimens, we are sorry to say, were not exhibited. 



