186 [June, 



has. (Nerviires pale, white or grey reniform dot nearly always present, and in 

 the hind-wings a fine short line near the discoidal, more or less clearly indicated. 

 This last character is peculiar to this and the next form, and is not to be found 

 in the typical ocellaris group or gilvago). 



This is the original description with additions lu brackets. Habich 

 was doubtful whether the insect he described was a form of ocellaris or a 

 hybrid ocella^-is x gilvago, and the point does not yet seem to have been settled 

 on the Continent. 



Variatio7i. Bred examples are generally darker in their ground colour, and 

 the median band is darker and more clearly defined. Three examples bred 

 in 1914 for the first time from a typical $ had all markings indistinct. In wild 

 examples the ground colour may be ochreous grey, biscuit, or reddish ochreous, 

 and sometimes there is a strong greyish suffusion. Markings vary in intensity 

 of colour and extent of the median band and basal blotch on the costa. An 

 extreme form in one direction is almost devoid of all markings, and is only to 

 be separated from the ocellaris group by its wing fringes and discoidal line ; in 

 the other it has the median band much broadened below, and the basal blotch 

 extended into a band. Both forms are at present uniqiie among British 

 examples. 



Asiatic examples in Herr Piiugeler's collection were generally larger and 

 paler with the hind-wings white. Some remarkable mo7ieta-like forms from the 

 Alexander Mts. in Asiatic Russia, with dark veins and markings on a bright 

 yellow ground colour, call for a varietal name. 



Ab. gilveseens n. ab., Ent. Mo. Mag., fig. 6. As in vntermedia, but with pale 

 buff ground colour, and with the stigmata faintly indicated, the pale inner cir- 

 cumscription absent, and the outer dark line frequently incomplete. Thorax 

 greyish yellow with dark crest. 



Variation. Bred insects offered no variation. The wild vary only in 

 markings and follow intermedia. The figure 6 must be regarded as an extreme 

 form. A lightly marked example taken in 1911, though mistaken at the time 

 for fulvago L., is hardly to be distinguished from some of the paler European 

 forms of gilvago. The markings of the specimen bred in 1910 are disposed 

 exactly as in fulvago L. 



No intermediate foi-ms have been found as yet between this and the preceding 

 ab., but knowledge of gilveseens is at present confined to tlie few insects bred in 

 1910, and the five wild examples taken since that date. 



A note on the principal points of difference between the gilvagO' 

 like forms of ocellaris and gilvago may be of service to anyone meeting 

 with the rarer insects for the first time. 



Taken over the whole area of distribution, there is, perhaps, no 

 single character which can be used with certainty, but the presence in 

 any insect of one of the following characters should be sufficient to fix 

 the species, as, so far as I know, they never occur in gilvago : — in the 



