230 THE entomologist's recoed. 



serve (as I have lately been pleading before the International 

 Congress) to show the directions of variation in a species, 

 and those variations occasionally point out quite unexpected 

 affinities " ; it is usele^^s to name some and intentionally leave out 

 others, for we may omit just those that will eventually prove to be 

 of scientific value. Hundreds will be lost, probably thousands will 

 only occasionally recur, it may not be one in a thousand that will 

 eventually prevail, but this makes it all the more important to register 

 such variation as has actually taken place, as helping to define the 

 range within which variation in a species is possible and the directions 

 in which new species may (because it has been shown that they tnii/Itt) 

 eventually rise. Unless they are in some way registered, the facts 

 themselves will certainly pass into oblivion, and a name is the simplest 

 fnd easiest form of registration. That the naming of aberrations 

 might be much simplified and put on a far sounder basis I readily 

 admit, and I have suggested that a name once given to a certain form 

 of aberration should be applied automatically to the same form of 

 variation occurring in other (or at least in related) species. 



But Col. Manders had in store a much greater surprise even than 

 an onslaught (coming from such a quarter) on aberrational names, and 

 that is his failure to grasp the great interest and importance of the 

 particular example which he has chosen to hold up to ridicule. Every 

 one of his first seven " abs." of Teracoliis li)iibatu!< not only ))ii;iht but 

 oiiilht to be named. (Not that abs. 8 and 9 are unimportant, but they 

 could only be dealt with in a work containing microscopical research, 

 and it would be time enough to name them, if frequently referred 

 to, when used in such a work.) It is almost impossible to over-estimate 

 the phylogenetic importance of these colour-changes ; and as to ab. 1 : 

 — Is this absence of the spot the original form ? Has the spot been 

 acquired ? Has it been lost ? Are lost characters liable to re-appear ? 

 What is the condition in this respect of the most nearly related 

 species ? etc. Every reader of the Transactinna of the Kntowoloi/ical 

 Sdcieti/ knows that Col. Manders has not only a scientific but an 

 unusually judicial mind, and I am more than ready to admit that on 

 any scientific question whatever he could " give me points and beat 

 me hollow ; " so I shall be not only satisfied but proud if I can, like 

 the mouse in the fable, nibble through some of the knots in the net of 

 prejudice by which in this matter he seems to have become entangled, 

 so that he may be free to pursue scientific investigations on the very 

 data which have seemed to him not only useless but ridiculous. 



Some Captures in Norfolk, with special reference to Lithostege 



griseata. 



By the Rev. C. THOIINEWILL, M.A. 

 Some years ago I spent about ten days during June at Thetford, 

 and came away very much struck with the possibilities of the district 

 from an entomological point of view. It was a good season, and I 

 had generally the assistance of my son, who was then living there ; 

 and during those ten days I succeeded in taking specimens of several 

 good local insects — some of them in considerable numbers — viz., 

 Dianthoecia irm/ularis, At/rophila trabealis (sulj)huralis), Acontia 

 luctuosa, Acidalia rubiijinata [rubricata), Lithosteye griseata, and Spilodes 



