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FURTHER NOTES ON CERTAIN VARIETIES OF 

 SPILOSOMA LUBBJCIFEDA. 



By W. H. Tugwell. 



It appears that the first to give the name radiata to the var. of 

 S. liihricijjeda, now referred to zatiina of Cramer, was Haworth ; 

 but, so far as I can discover, he only described it, no figure being 

 given, and certainly that description (as given in the old Trans. 

 Ent. Soc. i. 366, 1809-1812) is extremely vague. He describes 

 it thus : Spilosoma radiata, Sp. 5, radiata, " Alis anticis nigris, 

 macula magna lobata variiesque flavicantibus. Haw." No men- 

 tion is made of that important and most striking feature of the 

 insect, viz., the black hind wings, with their finely pencilled 

 ochreous-yellow nervures or veins, and yellow fringes. In fact, 

 Haworth's description rather applies to the var. of S. menthastri, 

 as figured by Curtis in ' British Entomology,' plate 92, var. 

 ivalkeri. If Haworth was describing his insect from the zatima 

 type, he could not have failed to note so striking a feature as the 

 hind wings of zatima always are. The hind wings vary to some 

 extent, but out of some four hundred specimens that I have bred 

 not a single one fails to show these black hind wings with finely 

 pencilled lines. The earliest English figure I can find of radiata 

 is in Wood's ' Index Entomologicus ' additions, plate 52, fig. 1657, 

 published in 1839. This clearly gives a male exactly of the type 

 I have bred so many of, and is drawn from a specimen, taken in 

 Yorkshire, which was in Mr. Bentley's cabinet ; but the date of 

 capture is not given. In the * Entomologist ' (vol. vii. 169, 1874) 

 the late Mr. Edward Newman gave an excellent woodcut of a 

 female, under the name of Arctia radiata, and makes the follow- 

 ing remark : " Mr. Dawson (of Driffield, Yorkshire) has most 

 obligingly lent the specimen for figuring in the * Entomologist.' 

 The late Mr. John Curtis published a beautiful figure, of a very 

 similar variety, under the name of Arctia radiata. A similar 

 variety of Arctia menthastri occasionally, but very rarely 

 occurs" (E. N.). Unfortunately Mr. Newman failed to state 

 where this figure was given, and it has been thought by some 

 that he had confused it with that of menthastri var. ivalkeri ! 

 but as he also mentioned the var. ivalkeri at the time, that 

 certainly gives the idea that he had a knowledge of two 

 separate figures, and, although I cannot discover such a plate, 

 yet I have good reason to believe that Curtis did have radiata, 

 sent to him from Lincolnshire, as the following extract from a 

 letter to me, from Mr. W. H. B. Fletcher, clearly shows, and it 

 is very probable that he would figure so beautiful a form. Mr. 

 Fletcher writes : — 



" The radiata form has been known to occur on the very extensive 

 sand-hills of Lincolushire, lying on the coast between Boston and 



