LA RENTID.ll—H ] TSIPE TES. 375 



summer. On the otln'r hand in South Yorkshire and Staiford- 

 shire a imicolorous black-brown form is reared from sallow, 

 while tlirre whortleberry produces all the g-reen forms as well 

 as the black. Irish specimens seem usually to be of the full 

 size, but some are of a very curious brown colour, or of a 

 beautiful green-black, or have broad contrasting bands of 

 green and grey. To catalogue all the wider aberrations is a 

 hopeless task ; but a few may be instanced. In the collection 

 of Mr. S. J. Capper is a specimen having the fore wings 

 almost wholly tawny brown, and another in which they are 

 dull black with two rather leaden-grey transverse stripes ; in 

 that of Mr. Sydney Webb is one. dark olive-brown with 

 three white spots placed triangularly ; another in which the 

 middle area is rich fulvous ; a third greyish-white with 

 beautiful broad green-black and tawny stripes ; a fourth 

 pale glaucous with two very narrow grey stripes ; and a fifth 

 purple-black with silvery-white clouded stripes. 



On the wing in July and part of August, but where the 

 whortleberry-feeding form occirrs, in the iSouthern districts, it 

 is on the wing before the end of June. 



Lakva stout, head slightly bihd, hazle-brown ; a dark 

 brown horny plate on the second segment ; liody dull reddish 

 or purplish-grey ; dorsal line grey, very faint ; subdorsal 

 lines broad, whitish ; spiracular line and another above it 

 whitish but inconspicuous ; divisions whiter, forming two 

 pale spots between the segments ; uiidersuri'ace pale greyish- 

 green, contrasting with the ground colour; legs dark brown ; 

 prolegs and spiracles tinged with red. (C. Fenn.) 



August till April or May on sallow, whortleberry, and 

 occasionally nut, also, on mountains where whortleberry is 

 absent, feeding on heather (Callitn/i vulgaris) ; hybernating 

 when one-half grown ; curling up the leaves or drawing 

 together the young shoots of its food plants, and when young 

 even boring into old catkins : feeding at night, but remaining 

 in its habitation of leaves during the day, and very easily 



