LUPERTNA GUENEEI AS A SPECIES. 19 



I have compared this fresh luaterial sent me by M. Oberthiir, with 

 that in the British Museum. The specimen I have referred to in my 

 previous notes labelled "Central France, Coll. M. Hand" and classified 

 as ha.rti'ri, is identical with the specimens of L. tcstacea sent me from 

 Rennes (Central France) and is most certainly wrongly placed as 

 ba.vteri. There are no L. (/rasUni in the Museum collections. 



Now arises a difficulty. M. Guenee, in or before 18G4, had the 

 Doubleday specimen called (juencei in his hand and, comparing it with 

 the specimen he|^had called var. A of L. tcatacea, came to the definite 

 conclusion that they were identical. M. Oberthiir has, at the present 

 time, this actual specimen var. A of M. Guenee in his collection, and 

 states, as I have mentioned above, that it agrees with the form of testacea 

 from Algeria, i.e., meridionale, and with the form from S. France, i.e., 

 (jueneci (of French entomologists), of each of which forms he has sent me 

 a specimen. I have not the slightest hesitation in calling them pale 

 forms of L. testaceo. They do not agree with the Doubleday specimen 

 of (jueneei which M. Guenee identified as var. A of testacea of his Sjiecies 

 fieneral. This Doubleday specimen is undoubtedly, as I have shown 

 before, an example of what we now know in Britain as /.. (jtieneei. 

 Hence we are compelled to admit that the identification of M. Guenee 

 was erroneous. Thus the (jueneei of French entomologists is L. testacea 

 var. or ab. (jueneei, while the (jueneei of Doubleday has been perfectly 

 separated from L. testacea. 



From an examination of the specimens, we turn to the references 

 connected with L. (jrasUni. In an article published in the Ihill. Soc. 

 eiit. de France for 1908, p. 322, M. Oberthiir makes a series of historical 

 observations on a new French species which he names Luperina 

 f/raslini. It appears that Mr. Harold Powell, w4io had been collecting 

 during the summer and autumn of 1908 in the Pyrenees- Orien tales, 

 sent to M. Oberthiir, more than 50 specimens of a Noctuid species, 

 which were close to L. testacea, but absolutely separable from any 

 known forms of that species, and extremely distinct from the form 

 indigenous to the Pyrenees-Orientales. M. Oberthiir had in his 

 collection under the name L. nickerlii a short series of a species, which 

 had been obtained from CoUioure, Pyr.-Or., in 1847 and 1857, one of 

 which M. Guenee had called var. B. of L. testacea \n his Species jeneral, 

 Noctut'lites, I., p. 183. This actual specimen with five others were 

 obtained from the collection of M. Graslin and from that of M. Pierret 

 to whom M. Graslin had presented the example subsequently described 

 by M. Guenee. This last referred-to example bears a label in minute 

 characters stating that the specimen was bred on September 5th from 

 a larva taken at Collioure, and in later writing " I believe it to be 

 distinct," with a doubt as to its identification by M. Graslin with the 

 L. nickerlii from Prague, being correct. On comparing the 60 odd 

 specimens obtained by M. Powell with those bred long years before from 

 the same district by M. Graslin, M. Oberthiir was satisfied that they 

 were one and the same species, and were undoubtedly not L. testacea. 

 He also compared the two series with some four insects which he had 

 obtained from Bohemia under the name L. nickerlii, and having 

 concluded that his long series were not that species, named them 

 jraslini after M. Graslin their original discoverer. 



In the Ann. .S'oc. ent. de France, p. 309, 1863, M. Graslin gives a 

 full account of the specimens obtained by him at Collioure in 1847 and 



