1895] 199 



are difficulties in the way — one especially — the circumstance tbatwhen 

 a deviation is first noticed there is nothing to point to it as a form 

 likely to become recurrent, and there is, therefore, no urgent induce- 

 ment to record it ; and it may be that melanic forms of the species in 

 question have long existed, though it seems certain that they have, of 

 late, vastly increased in numbers. The cause has been frequently and 

 exhaustively discussed, and I do not propose novF to meddle with that 

 subject, but merely to collect together the materials scattered through 

 this and other Magazines, personal information, and notes on the 

 forms in many of our best collections, in such a manner as to furnish 

 a basis for further observations. 



Before going further, I wish to make it clearly understood that 

 the phase of variation to which I propose to draw attention is not 

 that form of melanism which results in a blackening and intensifying 

 of the usual markings of the species, as is to be seen in Gnophos 

 obscurata, nor even of so moderate a change towards smoky-black as 

 is exhibited very often in London specimens of Boarmia rliomboidaria, 

 but that of an absorption of the usual markings, and substitution of 

 smooth clear black or smoky-black over the fore-, and in some cases 

 the hind-wings, only interrupted, usually, at the nervures. Those to 

 which I wish to draw attention more particularly are Amphidasys 

 hetularia, Phigalia pilosaria, Boarmia repandaria, ahietaria, roboraria, 

 Tephrosia crepuscularia, with its variety hiundularia, Venusia camhrica, 

 and Hibernia progemmaria. Our earlier authors, Haworth, Curtis, 

 Stephens, Wood, Westwood and Humphrey, and even Stainton and 

 Newman hardly refer to these forms. Their descriptions and figures 

 are, of course, of specimens having the normal markings, but varieties 

 so striking as we now know would surely not have been ignored by 

 all these writers had they been in existence. 



So far as I can discover, the first species observed to take this 

 line of variation was 'replirosia crepuscularia, and its paler form, 

 biundularia. In the year 18G6 Sir John T. D. Llewelyn recorded in 

 this Magazine the capture of " a handsome leaden-coloured variety of 

 Tephrosia laricaria " {crepuscularia) , from which he obtained eggs. 

 Through an accident only eight pupa? of this batch were reared, but 

 of these five were of the dark "leaden-coloured" variety. In 1808, 

 however, and subsequently, a good number were reared, and in 1872 

 lie wrote as follows: — '' A few years ago I obtained three batches of 

 ova from dusky smoke-coloured females of Tephrosia crepuscularia 

 {laricaria of Stainton's Manual) by males of the ordinary typical 

 clayey-grey colour. From these ova I reared to maturity, in the fol- 



