LARENTID.^—MELANIPPE. 103 



resembling M. rimta. Of this 1 have also a conspicuous 

 example taken on Cannock Chase. On the other hand. 

 Dr. Freer has taken in the same locality one wholly obscured 

 by smoky sufiusion. A curious local and permanent variety 

 is found in the Isle of Lewis and elsewhere in the Hebrides, 

 in which the colour of the dark bands is entirely changed 

 to dark umbreous or even rather light brown, and the 

 white spaces are narrowed and suffused with pale brown or 

 ochreous. A similar tendency, but in a less degree, is found 

 in the specimens from the Orkneys. A more casual phase 

 of variation is found in the obliteration of some of the 

 markings. Dr. Mason has a specimen in which the central 

 area of the fore wings is occupied by a tchitc band, the 

 usual dai'k stripe having disappeared, leaving only the black 

 discal dot. In Mr. Sydney Webb's collection is one some- 

 thing like it, but having three central black spots ; and 

 others similar, or with the dark band very narrowly repre- 

 sented. Finally Mr. Harold Huston has a specimen, captured 

 by himself, in which the central dark markings of fore and 

 hind wings are obliterated and the hind marginal grey stripe 

 is deflected inwards at the costa. 



On the wing in May and June ; and a partial second genera- 

 tion in August and September, but in forward seasons as 

 early as the end of July. With the protection afforded by 

 feeding indoors this second brood becomes complete. 



Larva uniformly cylindrical ; head of nearly the same 

 diameter, pellucid smoky-brown, dotted with black, and 

 having two darker brown lines which meet on the crown; 

 body brown, beautifully variegated and mottled ; the second, 

 third, and forth segments have a black dorsal line, and 

 on each of the six succeeding segments is a somewhat horse- 

 shoe shaped dorsal white mark, the last terminating in a 

 brown dorsal stripe which extends through the eleventh and 

 twelfth segments to the extreme tip of the thirteenth ; these 

 white marks might be called lozenge-shaped but that they 



