BOARMIDJE—HIMERA. 79 



slightly waved below the costa ; both faint leaden-brown, 

 and the second edged outside with a slightly paler shade of 

 the ground colour ; discal spot obscure, leaden-black ; a 

 larger cloudy similar ring, enclosing a white spot, lies near 

 the apex of the wing ; cilia short, of the ground colour. 

 Female often larger in expanse of wings, which also are 

 a little narrower and more pointed, the fore wings having a 

 projecting tooth or angle in the very oblique hind margin ; 

 rather thinly scaled, and of a more purple tinge of red ; hind 

 wings whiter; antennge simple; abdomen very stout but 

 short. 



Underside of all the wings of a paler shade of the colour 

 of the upper side ; nervures more ochreous ; markings faintly 

 reproduced, except that the black-ringed white spot near the 

 apex of the fore wings is quite conspicuous. Body and leg 

 tufts pale chestnut ; legs darker. 



Considerable diversity exists, in this species, in the posi- 

 tions of the first and second lines of the fore wings ; in some 

 specimens these are placed far apart, in others near together ; 

 sometimes in the female they almost coalesce ; Dr. P. B. Mason 

 has one in which the second actually crosses the discal spot 

 and unites with the first in the middle of the wing ; a male in 

 Mr. Sydney Webb's collection has them both broadened into 

 smoky-brown stripes by partial duplication, and has a third 

 stripe composed of smok^^-black clouds placed as a sub- 

 terminal line. Variation in size is also considerable — in the 

 collection of Mr. Robt. Adkin is a male over two inches 

 in expanse — a noble-looking creature. Patches of clouding 

 near the transverse lines are not infrequent, in some cases of 

 smoky colour, in others paler, ochreous or even yellow ; and 

 in the female the general colour varies from whitish-purple to 

 rich tawny-red. Some of the richer-coloured forms are met 

 with in Ireland, Lieut. Browne reared at Enniskillen in 

 1894 a male, dark red-brown, with the lines black, and the 

 basal and apical regions clouded with black dusting \ and 

 another of a light red, with the transverse lines pale yellow, 



