110 [May, 



ENAR3I0NIA ERICETANA, H.-S., A SPECIES OF TORTBICINA NEW 

 TO THE BEITISH LIST, IN SCOTLAND. 



BY EUSTACE R. BANKES, M.A., F.E.S. 



It affords me much pleasure to bring forward tliis species, which 

 must, on no account, be confused with Epihlema ericefana, Wstwd., 

 as an addition to our recognised Lepidopterous Fauna. The first 

 knoAvn British individual was taken at Aviemore, in the coimtj of 

 Inverness, bv Canon C. T. Cruttwell towards the end of Jiuie, 1907, 

 and was recorded by him as " EriojJseJa (piadraiia " in Ent. Mo. Mag., 

 Ser. 2, xviii, 257 (1907). For this error of identification I am entirely 

 responsible, for, although much puzzled by it when it reached me 

 among other determmanda, I finally came to the conclusion tliat it 

 was presumably a queer northern aberration of Enarmoma (Eriojjsela) 

 quadrana, Hb., which is closely allied to the species under notice. The 

 next captures of the latter insect were made, in the same locality, by 

 Canon Cruttwell and myself in the latter half of June, 1908, when our 

 efforts were rewarded by the acquisition of a few specimens, some of 

 which, however, were in unsatisfactory condition. On consulting my 

 collection after my return home, it at once became evident that the Avie- 

 more individuals did not represent any form of E. (laadrana, and when 

 able, in the following March, to compare them with the Frey collection, 

 they were recognised as conspecific with the very first species upon which 

 my eye lighted ! Frey's written label, referring to this, reads " G. 

 [i.e., Gmpholitlia. — E.R.B.] ericetana, Z.," but this name should be 

 attril)uted to Herrich-Schaff'er, who adopted and published Zeller's 

 MS. name for the insect. Having been again ordered to Aviemore 

 last summer for reasons of health, I met with E. ericetana in its 

 original haunt, and also discovered a new locality for it, distant about 

 three miles from the foiiner : the one spot is just over 700 feet above 

 sea-level, while the other is perhaps a trifle higher. It was very far 

 from common, and an immense amount of hard work on the part of 

 my wife and myself, dviring the whole period over which the imago 

 was obtainable, was necessary to furnish me witli suflicient material 

 for a satisfactory study of the local variation and the sexual dis- 

 tinctions, and for the completion of a series for my collection. 



The following translation of Herrich-Schaffer's original notice of 

 E. ericetana, in Syst. Bear. Schmet. Eur., iv, 276, will perhaps be 

 useful ; — 



" 428. Ericetana Zell. in litt. As Frohlicli already has a Flexuana, I 



adliero to the earlier Zellcrian uame Sjipl. 136. Virgata^ia FR. olim. 



Flexulana Diip. pi. 265. f. 8 Zell. Is. 18i6. p. 243. 8—8 L." 



