206 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



and the normal form of lahricipeda, a fair percentage being 

 radiata. By selecting males and females of the latter form, and 

 breeding from them, Mr. Harrison has supplied us with this 

 grand variety of lahricipeda. In May, 1893, when I was breeding 

 the form I named fasciata, I selected a strongly-banded female, 

 and sent to Mr. Porritt for him to try and cross with radiata, 

 the emergence of that form being over with me. Mr. Porritt's 

 radiata being a trifle later, he was enabled to obtain the desired 

 crossing, and we each had a portion of the ova. The result now 

 off the setting-boards is most satisfactory and interesting. 



A few only of my portion came out as true radiata, like its 

 male parent ; most of them favoured the female parent ; that is 

 to say, had not the black under wings finely pencilled by the 

 yellow nervures of radiata, but had instead the broadly-marked 

 note of interrogation-like character so pronounced in the var. 

 fasciata. Still, curiously, not one was quite a pure fasciata, 

 always having the strongly-developed oblique line of markings 

 from the apical tip to the middle of inner margin very strongly 

 accentuated; in fact, being almost identical with the York City 

 form, ehoraci (fig. 2). This is very interesting, as out of the 

 large brood of radiata I bred in 1893-4 (720 ova, the result of 

 one single pairing) not one of that brood could be mistaken for 

 ehoraci. But the cross of a female fasciata and a male radiata 

 virtually produced that form, some of them being particularly 

 striking vars. 



The outcome of this cross is both interesting and suggestive, 

 and it occurs to me that the "York City form" ehoraci resulted 

 from just this kind of cross. Has not a male radiata from the 

 sand dunes of Lincolnshire or Yorkshire a greater chance of 

 reaching York by flight than would a heavy female charged with 

 eggs ? and a cross between an errant radiata male and a local 

 female Inhricipcda would, we now see, produce such offspring. 

 This of course is mere hypothesis, but still possible, and may we 

 not say probable. 



6, Lewisham Eoad, Greenwich. 



[As they may better fix the various forms referred to, figures 

 of vars. zatima. Cram. {= radiata, Haw.), ehoraci, a,nd fasciata, 

 Tugwell, are given ; these, together with others in vol. xxvi. 

 p. 257, furnish a very good idea of the variation of ;S'. luhricipcda. 

 WaUicri, Curtis, is a variety of S. mcnthastri, but as it is some- 

 what similar to var. zatima of S. luhricipcda, and has been con- 

 founded with that form, the original figure is here reproduced in 

 black and white (fig. 1). — Ed.] 



