62 THE entomologist's record. 



Zetterstedt would appear to have got both thif! and our var. interiiiedia 

 in Lapland, for he writes {hisecto Lapponica, p. 930) : " Specimina 

 plerumque plus minus detrita et fusco rufescentia leguntur. Illsesa aut 

 tota subrubra, aut thorace alisque anticis rufo-fuliginosa .... 

 Al« postica? rubrae disco plus minus late fusco, puncto centrali 

 obscuriori." His description of the Lapland form best known to him 

 suggests our intermecUa-marfiinata, for he describes it as : — 



Alis anticis rufo-fuliginosis puncto in medio gemino fusco ; posticis rubris 

 puncto centrali fasciaque intramarginali fuscis. Long. al. exp. 1J-1§ poll. 



Strand, who has recently been paying atttention to the Scandinavian 

 forms of certain lepidoptera, states [Berichte des natuririss. Ver. in Rei/eiu^., 

 vii.) that the var. borealix has been taken at Tromso, and that in most 

 parts of Arctic Norway all the specimens are of the borealh form, 

 with only the broader or narrower outer margin rose-red. Strand 

 appears not to consult the original description of a species when 

 dealing with varietal forms, and apparently accepts Staudinger's views 

 without question. Lampa, too, does not refer to the Linnean 

 descriptions, but says {Ent. Ti<h., vi., p. 36) : " The typical form with 

 the hindwings mostly red seems to occur only in the southern parts of 

 the Scandinavian region, viz., in Denmark and possibly in southern 

 Sweden and Norway, ejj., Christiania. The var. borealia, with more 

 thinly-scaled wings, the hindwings chiefly black, occurs throughout 

 Sweden, Norway and Finland." It is remarkable that not one of 

 these Scandinavian lepidopterists had ever referred to Linne's original 

 description as to what really was the original type. The specimen in 

 the Linnean collection is unset, but appears to be of the northern form 

 and to accord with his description. The variation of the northern 

 race ( = Linne's type = var. bnrealis, Staudinger) is well-known to all of 

 us, thanks to the generosity of our Scotch collectors Avho obtain the 

 larv8B and breed the imagines in great numbers. The marked characters 

 of this race, as we know it in Britain, may be noted as : — 



(1) The similarity of the sexes. (2) The resemblance of the fore- and hind- 

 wings in their uniform tint and marl^ing. (3) The uniform darli coloration of the 

 more or less semitransparent forewing with its twin-spots. (4) The uniformly 

 coloured, more or less semitransparent, fuscous-black hindwings, with similar 

 twin-spots to those of the forewings (occasional!}" joined by the darkened discoidal 

 nervure so as to form a discoidal lunule), and with only a slender red line on inner 

 margin from base to anal angle. (5) The fringes of the forewings of almost the 

 same tint as the ground colour of these wings. (6) The red fringes of the hind- 

 wings narrow and cut off sharply from the ground-colour of the wing by a strongly 

 marked black outer-marginal line. (7) The narrowness of the wings compared 

 with their length. (8) The much smaller average size of the specimens. 

 Localities :— Inveran (1891), Pitcaple (1880-1890), Aberdeen (1880-1890), Perth 

 (vi., 1888), Dundee (1883), Glasgow (1883), Galashiels (1880-1881), Morpeth (1892), 

 Carlisle (v., 1892), St. Anne's-on-Sea (1892) = /'(/Z/r/i)(o.s«, Linn. 



The variation within the limits of the race is not inconsiderable. 

 Anderson records {Ent., xiv., p. 136), that, on May 12th, 1881, he 

 bred a specimen that had the cilia of the hindwings an intense black 

 instead of the usual rosy-red = ab. niiiruciliata. n. ab. We have an 

 example from Galashiels in which the fringes are dark and inconspicuous, 

 but not black as here described. Then, in some examples, instead of the 

 forewings being of the smoky-red of the type, they are a bright deep 

 red, approaching that of the more southern British forms = ab. tijpica- 

 rufa, n. ab. The only other variable characters in this northern 

 typical race, to which we need call attention, are (1) The very rare 

 development in the hindwings of the J s (much rarer in the <? s), of 



