T. mSTORTATA (cREPUSCULARIa) AND T. CREPUSCLtLARIA (bIUNDULARIa). 57 



problem, as stated by your correspondents, is a most complex one, 

 namely, that a pale insect emerging in March and April in the South 

 of England, has a summer form of a warmer tone, while in the same 

 locality a very similar insect, emerging in May to June, assumes the 

 livery of the summer form of the other species, but also has occasional 

 specimens of the pale form." This is " topsyturveydom " with a 

 vengeance. I have no doubt whatever that all the Irish specimens 

 mentioned by him in the same note [Entom., xix., p. 210) are 

 bmndularia. Then the mixture of synonymy again shows itself 

 (Ibid., p. 254) where Mr. Joseph Chappell calls the early species 

 T. Idundularia, which he says is taken " on and near larch trees, and 

 is always a dark and distinct species," whilst he reports having taken 

 T. crepmcidaria in Delamere Forest, and other well-known haunts of 

 T. hiumhdaria. Mr. Payne [Ibid., vol. xxviii., p. 171) writes : — 

 " Tephrnsia crepmcidaria. Barrow. Common. T. hiiuidularla (= lari- 

 caria). Frequently, south." Here evidently the author of the 

 Derbyshire list makes a curious mixture in his attempt to unravel 

 Stainton's synonymy. Mr. Nicholas Cooke (Z6;V/., April, 1887) writes 

 of " Tephrosia binndularia appearing in March, and was to be found 

 through April and May," evidently confounding the two species. 

 Mr. Cooke's use of the names is identical with that of Mr. Chappell 

 (in the quotation above), who called the early species biundularia. 

 Mr. Kane {Proc. St/i. Lond.Ent. Soc, 1891, p. 55) exhibited specimens 

 of T. biundularia, which he said "occurred in May and June, both in 

 the north and in Kerry, and doubted if the earlier brood existed in 

 Ireland." Surely Mr. Kane does not think that our English ovy^ff.sTit- 

 laria are the parents of our later biundularia. If so, it is a great 

 mistake. These must suffice, although it by no means exhausts the 

 list. 



There is only one other point to notice. In the Proc. Sth. Lond. 

 Ent. Soc, 1887, p. 39, is a note to the effect that "Mr. Tutt 

 exhibited a long series of Tephrosia crepuscularia, Hb., from Hungary, 

 and remarked that he Avas unable to obtain any forms of T. biundularia 

 from that country, although he had received it from Germany." 

 What I did say I cannot, after nearly ten years, 'recall, but I certainly 

 did not say what I am reported to have said. I now have the 

 specimens of T. crepuscularia then exhibited, with the locality label, 

 " Hanover," on them, nor have I ever, to my remembrance, possessed 

 Hungarian examples of T. crepuscrdaria, nor examples of T. biundularia 

 from Germany. 



In closing this " Historical Sketch " of these insects, based on the 

 data that have appeared in our British magazines during the last twenty 

 years, I have been careful not to trench on ground which is being covered 

 by other lepidopterists, whose united exertions are to appear in the form 

 of a paper to be printed in the Entoin. Record very shortly. I have, 

 therefore, not dealt with the diagnoses of the larvjB, the microscopic 

 structure of the scales, and other details, which would have swelled 

 this paper to undue proportions, although they would greatly help to 

 elucidate the point under discussion, i.e., as to whether TepJer<isia 

 bistortata and T. crc^jJt.srifZrtnVf are sufficiently distinct in their structure 

 and habits to make it advisable for lepidopterists to consider them as 

 two distinct species. 



[A remark made by Mr. Barrett since the above paper was read is 



