154 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Leucania, Ocli., comma, L. 



The type is described by Linufeus as " Spirilinguis cristata, 

 alis ciiiereis deflexis; lineola nigra adjacente tenuiori albse. Alge 

 sordido colore, lineola nigra baseos. Stigmata nulla." (' Systema 

 Naturae,' pp. 850, 851, No. 156.) Tlie essential points are — dirty 

 ash-coloured, with a black lineola touching a slender one of 

 white ; no stigmata. Treitschke writes, vol. v., p. 302, " Alis 

 anticis pallide fuscis," &c. Hiibner, fig. 228 (by error 328), 

 figures the type as turbicla ; his figure is excellent. This species 

 varies much in the depth of ground colour and markings, our 

 British specimens rarely occurring as pale as those from the 

 Continent, although Continental specimens are occasionally dark. 

 Hiibner figures this dark form, fig. G17, under the same name, 

 tui'hida, which he applies to the type. It is worthy of remark 

 that my Deal series includes the darkest, and at the same time 

 the palest, British specimens I have ever seen. 



Var. suffiisa, mihi. — The ground colour of the anterior wings 



of a decided brown colour, much darker than the type ; the 



anterior wings, including the costal area, very much sufl^used 



with fuscous scales, the spaces between the wing-rays showing 



out as distinct, dark, longitudinal, wedge-shaped streaks on the 



outer margin. The black streak under the base of the pale 



median nervure intensely black. The hind wings of a deep 



blackish grey colour. Nearly the whole of my British series 



belong to this melanic form. The specimens which I have from 



the London and Deal districts are generally darker than specimens 



I have from Yorkshire, Morpeth, Brecon, and Scotch localities. 



As mentioned above, Hiibner figures this form (fig. 617) under 



the name of turbida. Mr. Finlay, of Morpeth, gave me a specimen 



of this variety with a strongly-marked black lineola above the 



median nervure in the discoidal cell, and another short one quite 



at the base of the inner margin. There is also a constant form 



of variation, equally distributed through the paler type and var. 



sufiisa, with a distinct small black dot at the end of the 



discoidal cell. 



Leucania, Och., brev'dmea, Fenn.* 



The type of this species is described in the Ent. Mo. Mag., 

 vol. i., p. 107, by Mr. Fenn, and copied therefrom into Newman's 



* I have inserted this species in what seems to me its true position in our hsts. 

 It does not appear to me to be a Nonagria. 



