THE GENUS OtOUABlA. 317 



take at lamps near the town (Huddersfield), and at rest on birch, etc., 

 and which he now regards as " stragglers from their more natural 

 habitat (the moors)." 



Mr. Salvage is convinced that this is only a variety olfiluirammaria, 

 and Mr. McArthur also confesses that he cannot draw the line between 

 them, though out of deference to Dr. White, he admits that they may 

 be distinct. Actual intermediates do not seem to be very frequent, 

 though Mr. Clark's series may perhaps be so regarded. Mr. Salvage 

 writes me tliat the eggs he obtained, and from which Mr. Clark bred, 

 were from tvne filit/raiiimaria, taken among heather, at about 1,500ft. 

 elevation. Is this perhaps a slip of the memory ? Mr. Tutt is under 

 the impression that he heard at the time that the eggs were from a 

 lowland female. 



2b. — Vak. (?) APPRoxiMARiA, Weav. — This must also be regarded as 

 an intermediate form between filigrammaria and addendaria, as 

 Weaver himself says {vide, Ent. Rcc, vii., 291). From the whole 

 tenour of his remarks, I feel no doubt that it was simply a large 

 variety of fili{irammaria, with a preponderance of dark specimens. I 

 do not know whether he suspected that they fed on the spruce fir ; if 

 not, there is really nothing but size to differentiate them from the 

 type. Messrs. Gregson and Salvage have both mentioned the frequent 

 ocGnrrence ot fill ff ram III aria in fir woods where heather (irows. It may 

 be of interest to remark that Herr E. Piingeler, in a recent number of 

 the Stett. Ent. Zeit. (n\ some " Mittheilungen aus der Schweiz ") re- 

 cords dilutata at considerable elevation, the larv« on Pinus. larix 

 tolerably different from the normal form, but producing imagines 

 hardly differing from the type. It is a reasonable conjecture that 

 these would belong to the filifjrammaria group, but no description is 

 given to aid the determination. 



I doubt whether Mr. Gregson's present appro.vimaria is at all the 

 same as Weaver's. Mr. Gregson {ZooL, 1858, p. 6194) says that 

 Weaver saw his series, and Weaver cites Gregson's MSS. It is 

 therefore reasonable to assume that both writers were dealing with 

 the same form. But Mr. Gregson's series was bred from birch, and 

 his present idea of apprn,rimaria, as shown by two specimens named 

 by him, and kindly sent by Mr. Pierce, is of a dark narrow-winged 

 nebulata. Mr. Sydney Webb has the original series of Gregson's, and 

 inclines to call them vars. of the last-named species. I therefore ex- 

 press with some diffidence, what is nevertheless my own very decided 

 opinion (based on personal inspection), that they are a darker, less 

 glossy form of the antumnaria of the same locality (Delamere). The 

 only information that Mr. Gregson has published on his appm.rimaria 

 can be summed up as follows :— 1st, That it occurs in Delamere 

 Forest, about the same time of the year as nebulata. 2nd, That the 

 larva feeds on birch. 3rd, That the hind-wings are elongate, and have 

 the band running across them, not parallel with the cilia, as in nebu- 

 lata. This characteristic of the hind-wings, however, is also ad- 

 duced to fdi'jrammaria,axU%unnaria (addendaria), und precursaria. 4th, 

 That the form of the female is even more distinct homfilit/ranniiaria 

 and addendaria than they are the one from the other. 



Mr. Pierce has obtained from Mr. Gregson a little further informa- 

 tion. I quote what Mr. Pierce has written me on the subject : " He 

 (Mr. Gregson) says dilutata feeds on oak, and is bright velvety green; 



