DISTKIBUTE INSECT VARIETY. 287 



motlis that may, when worked out hy collectors, be possibly 

 found to be due to one or other of causes assigned, deserve notice. 

 For example, we find the female of nearly every species of the 

 glowing- yellow and orange genus of Clouded Yellows is liable to 

 an almost white variety, and the orange species are frequently 

 shot with a purple or violet flicker. The fulvous Fritillaries are 

 often melanic or greenish, and those inlaid with metallic have the 

 silvery blots replaced by yellow stains ; our wood-feeding Pearl 

 Bordered Fritillaries thus normally differ from one another. The 

 violet-shot species of Purple Emj)eror have their white bands 

 replaced by yellow, and in this and all genera of European but- 

 terflies spots and bands are proverbially obsolete or supplementary. 

 Among the moth kind, the rich rosy red of the spotted Burnets 

 of the long grass, and that of a Small Elephant Hawk from 

 Perthshire, has been found changed to yellow. The Swift Moths 

 are all variable. The dark-brown of the Northern Swift is 

 liable to be rejilaced by orange colour, which in the variety 

 Camus obscures the wing, or it is suffused wath ochreous, ap- 

 proaching the species in appearance to the common English 

 Swift, which varies in like fashion, or to its fern-feeding ally 

 sijlvcmus. The Loopers, or Geometrina, vary by enlargement of 

 the transverse darker or lighter wing-lines, and by their con- 

 tinuation or absence on the hind wings. In this fashion the 

 Latticed Heath INIoth of clover-fields changes from a whitish 

 ochreous, with a few transverse lines, to fuscous, with sparse light 

 spots, and the Common Heath varies from yellow to fuscous. 

 The Carpet Anticlea badiata becomes brown, and the species of 

 Cidaria pass from grey to ochreous and brown. Aberration in 

 the Blunt Wings or Tortricina, due to suffusion of the primary 

 wing-colour or to enlargement of darker markings, would seem 

 to resolve itself into melanism and albinism. With these little 

 moths a yellow wing varies to grey or brown, and a grey or 

 brown wing becomes black-brown. The genus Feronea has quite 

 magical varieties among sallow bushes and roseries. The little 

 Tineida3, or clothes'' moth group, presents species that vary from 

 bronzy to steely, and others that are dwarfed, with the metallic 

 spots more or less obliterated. The latter has been noticed of 

 our Gelechia Hermannella found in the United States of America. 

 We may, in conclusion, witness exterior circumstances inducino- 



