THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 173 



the imported pines look strange towering above the native 

 trees. 



All things have an end, or, rather, I should say there is no end 

 to the delights of Phillip Island if you go round and round it. 

 But we must, for the present at least, say to its many pleasant 

 places — Farewell. 



NOTES ON COLOUR-VARIATIONS OF TWO SPECIES 

 OF VICTORIAN BUTTERFLIES. 



By. Jas. a. Kershaw, F.E.S. 

 {Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 8th Feb., 1904.) 

 While collecting on the hills in Gippsland, between Trafalgar 

 and Thorpdale, in December, 1901, I was very fortunate in taking 

 several well-marked dark varieties of our Common Brown Butterfly, 

 Heteront/mpha merope, Fabr. This species was particularly 

 numerous at the time, and as usual the males greatly pre- 

 dominated. My attention was first attracted to a particularly 

 dark variety of a female, which settled on the ground within two 

 or three yards from me, but, greatly to my regret, it took to the 

 wing before I was able to approach near enough to use my net, 

 and rising up among the tree-tops was soon lost to sight. 



I was close enough, however, to see that it was an unusually 

 dark specimen, with quite the outer two-thirds of both the fore 

 and hind wings suffused with blackish-brown, and showing no 

 trace of usual light markings in the black of the fore-wings. The 

 under side of the wings was also strongly suffused with blackish- 

 brown. 



This, as far as I could judge from the glimpse I had, seems to 

 agree with the female taken by Mr. G. A. Waterhouse at 

 Bowral, N.S.W., and described by the late Mr. F. A. A. Skuse 

 as Heteiompnpha •mero'pe, Fabr., var. suffusa, on p. 13 of the 

 " Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London " for 1895. 



I spent some hours in searching the locality, in the hope of 

 seeing it again, but, though I examined scores of females, I did 

 not find one showing any perceptible variation. 



For m,y long search, however, I was rewarded by the capture of 

 the dark varieties of the males described below, and curiously 

 enough, these were all taken within a short distance of the spot 

 where I saw the dark female. 



Although I devoted the remainder of the day searching for 

 further specimens, and during the two days following travelled 

 over some miles of similar country, examining hundreds of these 

 butterflies, I did not meet with any more examples of this 

 interesting variety. 



It is well known that the " Browns " have a tendency to vary 

 in the manner described, and I have no doubt that if closer 



