I04 I.EPIDOPTF.RA. 



straight, pale yellow or wliite, beyond the middle of the 

 wings opening out loosely into lines on and between the 

 uervures so as to make a sort of triangle of slender fingers 

 running into the hind margin ; crossing these fingers is 

 usually a faint slender angulated brown line ; ordinarily the 

 dorsal margin has an ill-defined yellow-brown stripe or 

 clouding ; and this is sometimes edged above with darker 

 brown clouding, more frequently such clouding lies above 

 the middle stripe, and also separates the "fingers" at its 

 termination ; cilia rather shining, yellow-brown. Hind wings 

 ample, apex rather elongated but rounded, and hind margin 

 partially sinuous ; shining smoky brown ; cilia more tinged 

 with dull yellow. Female usually paler in colour, with the 

 fore wings more narrow, and decidedly more pointed, their 

 hind margin more oblique. 



Underside of the fore wings pale ochreous, much clouded 

 through the middle with smoke-colour. Hind wings smoky 

 white. 



Exceedingly variable — the colour ranging through evei-y 

 shade of yellow-brown, brownish-ochreous, and dull umbreous, 

 and the longitudinal stripe from pale ochreous and yellowish- 

 white to shining, strongly contrasting, pearly-white, or on 

 the other hand to total obliteration ; indeed, so eccentric are 

 some of the varieties that a very intimate knowledge of the 

 group is necessary for their identification ; and even then it 

 remains open to dispute ; such is a form in which the fore 

 wings are uniformly dark umbreous without a trace of stripe 

 or marking, but the hind wings verj' dark smoky brown ; 

 and another in which the hind wings are white and the fore 

 wings very nearly so. One specimen, taken in the Orkneys 

 by Mr. E. M. Cheesman, is of a soft bright yellow-brown, 

 with two distinctly visible angulated transverse lines. 

 On the wing from July till September. 



Larva three-quarters of an inch long ; head, dorsal plate 

 and raised dots glossy black ; body smooth, dull light fawn 



