NOTES ON THE VARIATION OF LARENTIA MULTISTRIGARIA. 803 



Notes on the Variation of Larentia multistrigaria. 



By J. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 



The fact that Larentia miiltistrii/aria is a variable species, and one 

 given to the production of melanic varieties, has long been a matter of 

 knowledge to lepidopterists, and it is somewhat remarkable that, 

 though several lepidopterists have specially reared and collected the 

 species for many years, not one of them has taken the trouble to work 

 it out in detail, nor give us even a summary of its range of variation. 

 The only reason for this note is to fulfil an obligation of some years' 

 standing, for, in British Moths, p. 267. I named the melanic form of 

 this species ab. nuhilata, but without description, and have further 

 used the name in my "List of Species, Varieties and Aberrations so 

 far only recorded from the British Islands" {Knt. Rec, xiv., p. 208). 

 It would, of course, have been much better if one of our well-informed 

 northern lepidopterists had written a detailed paper on the species, and 

 this must be only considered a stop-gap until some better qualified 

 lepidopterist will deal with the species on broader and more scientific 

 lines. For a species that has been so well worked, we note, in the Ent. 

 Her., only two references to the variation of the species, riz., (1) in 

 1891, Reid states {Ent. Rrc, ii., p. 57) that he collected the species at 

 Pitcaple specially for aberrations, that he got some nice banded forms, 

 and on the night of March 23rd three very dark, one as black as soot, 

 with only a few light dots round the edge. (2) In 1902, Porritt 

 exhibited {Ent. Bee, xiv., p. 109) two bred black examples from Hud- 

 dersfield, and said that " the dark form was rapidly increasing in 

 Yorkshire," and that " of those already emerged and reared from the 

 same brood three were normal and two dark." It has never been my 

 good fortune to possess (or see) any black ones, the darkest I have 

 seen, and those on which the ab. nuhilata was founded, are of a deep 

 fuscous-brown, sprinkled on the nervures with white dots. I should 

 be glad at any time to receive more extreme specimens, and will then 

 describe them. 



Although I possess a long and very varied series of this species 

 from English, Scotch and Irish localities, and feel tempted to draw 

 some general conclusions from their examination, I recognise that the 

 matter is outside my regular l^eat, and must be left to those who have 

 more leisure than I for such work among the Geometrids, or till I get 

 examples of the more extreme forms noted by Messrs. Reid and Por- 

 ritt. I will only add that a banded form (ab. vir(/ata, n.ab.), in which 

 the ground colour, and the whole appearance of the insect, are more or 

 less typical, except that the median area of the forewings is rather 

 darker, and forms a distinct transverse band, appears to be very 

 generally distributed with the type. 



It appears to be a species with a very wide distribution, occurring 

 along the Mediterranean littoral (among other places) in December 

 and January, and presenting there a pale race, which Duponchel 

 described {Hist. Nat., supp. iv., p. 884, pi. Ixxxi., fig. 2) and errone- 

 ously referred to the nebnlata of Hiibner, Freyer and Treitschke. 

 Later it was described by Milliere as var. olbiaria {Icon., ii., p. 157). 

 This Staudinger {Cat., 3rd ed., p. 296) refers with doubt to L. multis- 

 triffaria, evidently thinking it might be a distinct species, but Milliere 

 appeared to have little doubt about it, and as he figures and describes 

 December 15th, 1904. 



