BOA RMIDA^— GNOPHOS. , ^g 



prominent; face smooth and rounded, purple-brown, edged 

 above by a whitish transverse line beneath the antennse; 

 top of the head grey, rough ; thorax narrow, covered with 

 long scales, but not very rough, grey or grey-black ; abdomen 

 slender, smooth, dark grey; lateral and anal tufts small. 

 Fore wings broad and short; costa gently arched; apex 

 angulated ; hind margin beneath it perpendicular, curved off 

 below, decidedly crenulated ; dorsal margin a little rounded • 

 colour grey dusted with smoky-black; first line slender,' 

 curved, and much rippled, black ; second line not very oblique,' 

 slender, slightly curved, and disposed throughout in crescents! 

 black' ; area beyond it often more densely dusted with dull 

 black but divided by a slender, irregular, white-grey sub- 

 terminal line ; discal spot cloudy, somewhat annular, dull 

 black ; cilia slate-grey. Hind wings rounded behind, the 

 margin deeply notched into incisions deeper than scallops, 

 separated by very strong crenulations ; of the same colour as 

 the fore wings; central spot a cloudy black ring; just 

 beyond it is a rippled slender black transverse line following 

 on from the second line of the fore wings; cilia pale grey. 

 Female very sioiilar but a little stouter. 



Underside of the fore wings dull pale leaden-grev, darker 

 towards the margins ; hind wings whitish-grey wit"]i darker 

 dusting and the central spot and transverse line just percep- 

 tible. Body and legs dark grey. 



Exceedingly variable, and mainly in the direction of local 

 or racial forms. In the New Forest and sometimes on other 

 heaths in the South of England a form darker than is above 

 described is found in some plenty, and very constant in the 

 blackness of its dusting and markings; further west, in 

 Dorset, Somerset, and adjoining counties, is a race in which 

 a decided tinge of brown modifies the general grey or black • 

 while on the chalk hills of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, and 

 especially on the adjoining coast, various admixtures of white 

 modify the grey and often soften the markings ; until around 

 Lewes Sussex, and in some other chalky localities, a most 



