18S1.J 7r> 



of Packard, is here entered upon; according to Lord Walsingham, 

 Prof. Zeller " is now inclined to regard JP. Bertrami, ochrodactylus, and 

 Bischoffii as all belonging to the same species," so we may, therefore, 

 safely regard Bischoffii as a synonym. 



■ In a series of thirty specimens now before me, one (reared from 

 tansy by Mr. Jeffrey, of Scarborough) has a most decided black spot* 

 "just above and near the end of the split." This may clear the 

 difficulty of Packard's cervinidactylus. It is quite possible that he 

 described it from such a specimen, this is the brightest in my series, 

 it has long falcate anterior-wings ; at the other extremity is a type 

 from Herr Miihlig, so light as to bear a striking resemblance to the 

 figure of JP. petrodactylus, Walker, in the plate before me ; the an- 

 terior lobe is truncate, without any approach to the falcate form of 

 the former specimen. 



As to the identity of ochrodactylus and Bertrami, I confess my- 

 self quite unable to give a decided opinion, there seems to me no 

 distinct line between the richly fawn-yellow specimens with falcate 

 wings, and the pale straw coloured insects with the apex as square as 

 in gonodactylus, the extremes of the series look most distinct, but the 

 gradations are such as to make it very difficult to draw the boundary 

 line. Mr. Stainton says,f " The best character is furnished by the 

 hind legs ; in Bertram i the tibia? are slightly browned, but the tarsi 

 are spotless whitish, in dichrodactylus the tibiae are brown at the middle 

 and apex, and there is a brown spot at the end of the first tarsal joint." 

 HeinemannJ draws the following distinctions : " very close to the 

 former species, but the fore-wings less sharply pointed, all the 

 brownish-red dusting paler, the spots before the division pale, often 

 entirely wanting, the lines at the hind border finer ; on the third 

 feather of the hind-wing the black scales behind the middle are either 

 less or wanting. The legs are yellowish-white, the tibia? of the fore- 

 legs are brown at the end, in the hind tibia? the reddish-brown colour 

 is equally spread from the middle to the end. It is widely diffused, 

 the larva lives in Achillea ptarmica and Tanacetum vulgar e.^ These 

 distinctions, slight as they are, seem certainly inconstant in apparently 

 fine examples ; added to this, Heinemann makes the food-plant of the 

 larva doubtful, for he says of ochrodactyla, " in the stem of Tanacetum 



* Heinemann, in his description of ochrodactyla says, " vor der Spaltungzweischwarzbrauue, 

 mehr oder weniger deutliche Punkte." 



t Ent. Mo. Mag., vol. ii, p. 138. 



t Heinemann, die Schmetterlinge Deutscblands und der Schweiz, Band 2, Heft 2, p. 784. 



