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VARIATION OF LEPIDOPTERA AT EINGWOOD. 

 By J. H. Fowler. 



Considering the extraordinaiy season of last year, it seems 

 surprising that the Dinrni did not show any marked increase in 

 variation ; the great drought, one would have thought, would 

 at least have caused a good many dwarfs, but in my collecting I 

 saw but few. Epinephde ianira and E. hyperanthes, also 

 Argijnnis paphia, occasionally produced such, but the Vanessidse 

 and Argynnidse were unusually fine and well marked. Var. 

 valesina outnumbered the female type of A. paphia, and was 

 frequently very pale, almost blue all over ; the dark form, in fair 

 numbers, occurred also. 



A few species have shown a tendency to albinism or bleaching : 

 thus, a specimen of Argynnis euphrosyne with left primary white, 

 the dark markings almost obsolete; A. aglaia with the primaries 

 centred with large pure white spaces filling up several of the 

 cells, the secondaries with the first four cells each pure white 

 also ; in opposition to this, a female specimen, which I took upon 

 the same day, has the primaries almost black; A. adippe, 

 secondaries (above) transversely streaked with silver bars, four 

 upon the left and two upon the right wings, the superiors are 

 curiously blotched with silvery white. The yellow-spotted form 

 of A. paphia was not more numerous than usual. I took a spe- 

 cimen of A. euphrosyne irregularly marked with yellow, but 

 distinct from the paphia form ; another has the spots of the right 

 primary broken up and displaced. 



A female E. ianira has the fulvous spaces evenly divided into 

 small spots, and a male is not much larger than a specimen of 

 Coenonympha pamphilus. 



The best variety amongst the Rhopalocera is undoubtedly a 

 splendid example of Argynnis aglaia {charlotta"^) ; primaries with 

 the third discoidal spot absent, fourth enlarged ; submarginal 

 area with the usual spots, the three first and anal ones confiuent 

 to marginal lunules ; marginal line black, finely centred with 

 fulvous, inside ; the row of pale spots are much enlarged, central 

 line fine. Secondaries, a round black spot near the base, near 

 from which a long well-defined hammer-headed bar proceeds ; 

 marginal line and pale spots same as upon the primaries, but 

 inside the marginal line there are seven broad black bars nearly 

 reaching to the central line ; on the under surface the second- 

 aries have four very large silver bars arched from the base, a row 

 of central spots, the first yellow, the other six normal ; those 

 upon the margins, seven in all, are enlarged, the first two slightly 



* A figure of this interesting variety will be given in the May number of 

 this Journal. — Ec, 



