TKPHUOSFA CRKPUSCULARIA (bIUNDULARIa) IN IRELAND, 323 



through the plantation may give four or five specimens, so it cannot 

 be called common. I have seen no aberrations, and have not taken it 

 in any other locality. The ground is quite low, I should think not 

 many feet above the sea level. I do not think there is any other 

 brood ; I have never taken the ab. ddameroisi.'i. Of T. bistortata 

 {erejiHscularia) I know nothing. — J. E. R. Allen, Portora, Enniskillen. 

 The difficulty relating to the Tephrosias under discussion arises 

 from the various forms found in juxtaposition, and the extended limits 

 of emergence of the Tephrosias in question in the British Islands, a 

 comparatively narrow region. Now, in order to throw some light 

 upon the subject, we should look to the Continent on one hand, and 

 to Ireland on the other. On the Continent, it seems to me, the 

 question has hardly been fully worked out, especially as to the time 

 of emergence in different countries. I notice Berce gives Tephroda 

 crepim-ularia, Hb., which he describes correspondingly to our T. bia- 

 tnrtata, as having a doable emergence, March-April, June-August. 

 Guenee records a second species, T. biunduloria, Esp., from the 

 neighbourhood of Chateaudun, similar to the British. Guillemot 

 records the former from Auvergne, as having a double emergence, and 

 occurring in April and June. Hofmann likewise notes it as plentiful 

 in Germany, etc., in April-May, July-August. T. bmndnlaria, Esp., 

 he sets down as a local English, very variable form, and gives 

 a fig. of the ab. delamerensu. So far. therefore, we have evidence 

 of a Continental species with double emergence, both in the 

 warmer portions of France and Central Europe, and in the cold 

 and ungenial climate of Auvergne, with its late spring and chilly 

 autumn. This insect is undoubtedly found in Great Britain, and 

 agrees both in pattern and emergences with our T. bistortata. Now, 

 let us look across the Irish Sea. I can speak with some assurance, 

 for I have met with it, often in abundance, in fourteen Irish counties, 

 i.e., Donegal, Derry, Down, Tyrone, Monaghan, Fermanagh, Sligo, 

 Galway, Westmeath, Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford, Kerry, and Cork, 

 and have examined collections from several other counties. All the 

 specimens belong to the form named T. hixindidaria, Esp. The 

 emergence is single This is important, as in the south of Ireland the 

 climate should produce a double emergence in any insect which 

 exhibits such a tendency. I have, therefore, come to the conclusion 

 that there are two species, and that the Irish one is distinct from 

 T. bistortata. The only at all important variety found in Ireland 

 comes from a locality in co. Down, where it was discovered by Mr. 

 Watts, and approaches ab. delamerensis, though not so deeply clouded. 

 As to the ancestral form of these species, one can only speculate ; but 

 as the females are generally ligliter than the males, and approximate 

 more nearly in the two species than the other sex, I should imagine 

 that the stirps was a pale form like a light T. hinndidaria ; and that the 

 more highly coloured and deeply marked forms are later developments. 

 I certainly agree with Mr. Porritt in naming all the Yorkshire 

 examples I have seen, T. binndidaria, and I hold that in the case of 

 that species there seems to be an inherent conservatism in regard to a 

 single brood, as shown in the south of Ireland. Undoubtedly it has 

 a scanty April emergence in Ireland, as elsewhere, but I know of no 

 earlier date than April 5th, although a collector worked in Sligo all 

 through March, in a locality where it occurs ; and, in Tyrone, I have 



