THK HABITS AND VARIATION OF PHRAGMATOBIA FULIGINOSA. 61 



not unusual along the south Devonshire coast, for Winn records 

 (fi^nt., xiii., p. 117) a tine pair captured at Torquay on April 13th, 

 1880, a date almost as early as that on which we obtained, at Pegomas, 

 the parents of the specimens exhibited to-night, and which have 

 shown themselves to possess all the continuous- brooded possibilities 

 that one would naturally associate with the most suitable environ- 

 mental conditions of food, season, climate and habitat to be. found in 

 southern Europe or northern Africa. As another instance of an early 

 date, Blathwayt records that he took the imagines on April 10th, 1893, 

 at Hereford. The larvie are practically fullfed when they hybernate, 

 and so are ready to pupate early if the spring months be warm and 

 fine, and produce early imagines. The experiments detailed by Moss 

 {Ent. Fu'c, iv., pp. 113-114) hint strongly in the same direction. 1 

 may add that Lugger details {Imect Life. 1890, p. 237) how larvae, 

 frozen in the autumn and winter in Minnesota, U.S.A., pupate in 

 March, imagines appearmg in nature in early April, whilst wintering 

 larvae, brought into a warm room, will emerge in the first days of 

 February. 



One of the most remarkable facts concerning the naming of local 

 races is the free-and-easy assumption, by many of those who are 

 accustomed to the usual forms obtainable in central Europe, that these 

 must be the typical race, and northern and southern forms varieties 

 thereof. As a matter of fact, one would naturally suppose that, in 

 the case of the Linnean species, especially those mentioned in the 

 Faiuia Siiecicae, the original descriptions were made from northern 

 examples, and that the northern race would, in these instances, 

 represent the typical form, so far as the first-named type is con- 

 cerned. Even Staudinger appears rarely to have referred to a 

 Linnean description, and seems always to have acted on the 

 assumption here enunciated, whilst to most of those who are 

 describing varieties and aberrations at the present time on the 

 continent, entomological literature appears almost entirely unknown. 

 As an illustration of the point here complained of, Staudinger assumes 

 (Cat., 2nd ed., p. 59), without description, that the central European 

 form is the type form of P. fiilyiinom, and then describes the north 

 European form from Scotland and north Scandinavia as var. borealis, 

 and the south European form as var, fervida. The description of the 

 former reads: — " Minor, obscurior, alls posticis nigris, exc. marginibus 

 interioribus." If, now, we compare this description with the original 

 description of Linne, we shall see that they are identical. Linne's 

 description" (Fauna Stiecicae, 2nd ed., p. 308) reads as follows;— 



Pludaena Noctua fulUjinosu spirilinguis Isevis, alls detiexis luto-fuliginosis ; 

 punctis duobus nigris, abdomine sanguineo. Uddm., Diss., 7G, Raj, Lis., 228, 

 n. 13. Roes., Ins., i., phal. 2, t. 43. Habitat in Gramine, Kanticc. Descr. — 

 Magnitude Tabani. Alse snperiores lufo-fuscescentes ; punctis duobus nigris in 

 medio versus margiiieni cmssioreni. Inferiores similes sed magis fuscescentes, 

 lunula nigra, margineque postiuo sanguineo. Thorax brunneus. Abdomen 

 sanguineum triplici ordine punctorum nigrorum. 



There can be no doubt that this description refers to the northern 

 form ; none but this can be said to have " the hindwings similar to, 

 but darker than, the forewings, black lunule, blood-red outer margin." 



* I have taken this description in preference to that in the Systemu Naturae, 

 loth ed., p. 509, as being that of the form that Linne would know in nature. 



