THE HABITS AND VAKIATION OF PHRAGMATOBIA FULIGINOSA. 59 



that they are of the well-scaled, brightly-coloured, central European 

 type. Then, in the early •' eighties," the Galashiels collectors sent me 

 large supplies of larv?e, concerning which, I am ashamed to say, my 

 only anxiety was to roar a " good series," and, having nursed the 

 larvae with care and taken every precaution with the pupse, I murdered 

 the imagines as they appeared with a light heart, set them carefully, 

 stuck them into the cabinet without having made a single observation 

 relating to them, duly filled my series, and thought with satisfaction 

 what a clever scientific fellow I was. These, judging by individuals 

 still in my possession, were almost uniformly of the small northern 

 form. In the early " nineties " — August 1891 and 1892 — I canght a fai 

 number at light in Wicken Fen, mostly, but not entirely, <? s. These 

 were of a more brightly-coloured form, similar to those taken usually 

 in the Midlands, and which appears to be pretty generally distributed 

 through northern Germany, the Baltic States, southern Scandinavia and 

 South Finland, and, although showing some approach to the northern, 

 is on the whole closer to the central, European form. In April, 1898, 

 with Mr. Stanley Edwards, I took a few ^ s from the lamps on the 

 sea-promenade at Cannes. These were of rather different facies from 

 our most southern British forms, the forewings were somewhat less 

 dark, not so distinctly ruddy, the hindwings tending to pinkish rather 

 than crimson, and dark markings on the hindwings more restricted, 

 i.e., of the type I have more recently learned to look upon as the south 

 of France form. In the middle of August, 1901, again, I saw the males 

 in hundreds under the electric lamps in the squares of Turin, mostly 

 dead, though many living ones were clmging to the uprights carrying 

 the lamps ; these were distinctly paler, the hindwings more miniaceous, 

 and extreme developments of the south European form. Lastly, in early 

 April, 1903, whilst Dr. Chapman and I lingered by the banks of the 

 streamlet that runs through the village of Pegomas, one day about noon, 

 I snapped up a J that hovered for a moment over the grass at my feet, 

 missed another, whilst before 1 could box the first one, the doctor picked 

 up a $ with which a third arrival bad paired before we could prevent 

 him, quickly as we tried. This ^ and $ were, of course, the Cannes 

 or south of France type, and were the parents of the specimens which 

 Mr. Bacot has reared, and of which he will have something to tell you. 

 Near the same place, at Auribeau, Dr. Chapman took a large 2 as 

 early as March 16th in 1899. 



The 5 was kept in a large glass- topped box, in which she laid 

 considerably over 500 eggs. These were duly described under a hand- 

 lens, and then forwarded to Mr. Bacot from the south of France, in 

 order that he might work out the life-history in detail, for, even of the 

 commonest species, although we have superficial descriptions of the 

 fuUgrown larvae, we have rarely any comparative descriptions of 

 the dift'erent larval stadia, and scarcely any detailed descriptions of the 

 pupa. 



A word as to the distribution of the species. It has a tremendous 

 range ; it encircles the Avorld north of the subtropical zone ; it stretches 

 from the west coast of Ireland across Europe and Asia to Japan, 

 extends again across North America from the Pacific to the Atlantic, 

 and inhabits practically the whole of the Palaearctic and Nearctic 

 areas. It reaches so far north that it touches the Arctic Circle, and 

 appears to extend south until the warm temperate zone merges into 



