THE ATHALIA GROUP OF THE GENUS MELIT^A. 177 



1895, a single pair of P. pavichis was beaten from birch in the 

 Bentley Woods. P. myosotidis is very common in May and 

 August ; it has turned up at Lavenham, Oulton Broad, Barnby 

 Broad, and Ipswich in Suffolk, and about Lyndhurst in Hants ; 

 but P. hortensis appears to be rare — at all events, I have only 

 one female, which was beaten from low bushes in Bentley Woods 

 in the middle of June, 1896. P. virescens occurs in the same 

 locality, as well as at Barton Mills and Tuddenham Fen, some- 

 times as early as April 26th, the latest date of capture being 

 August 28th ; it is probably common. At Henstead in August, 

 Bentley in May, and at Merston in Isle of Wight in June, I have 

 found a species referred with comparative certainty to P. melan- 

 asjns ; and P. curtispinis has turned up at Tuddenham Fen in 

 June, Bentley Woods on birch in early May, and on very late 

 Heradeum flowers on the cliffs at Southwold on September 4th, 

 1907. P. oligospilus is probably common, though I have only 

 met with three females at Brandon, Tuddenham, and on the 

 banks of the Orwell at Ipswich, by beating sallow-bushes, and 

 along with it at the first town is found P. polyspikis, not in- 

 frequently in the middle of August. Only one P. brevivalvis has 

 fallen to my lot ; she was beaten from an alder at Foxhall, near 

 Ipswich, on September 10th, 1904, and P. bergmanni has not 

 been seen there since 1894. The handsome P. miliaris, Panz., 

 was taken at Ipswich during the same season, and a second 

 specimen bred from a somewhat irregularly shaped, dull, smooth, 

 jet-black cocoon found by Mr. G. W. Clutten at Burnley ; when 

 I received it on August 23rd, 1899, the imago had entirely 

 removed its operculum, but would not emerge, though quite per- 

 fect, without assistance. 



(To be continued.) 



THE ATHALIA GROUP OF THE GENUS MELITMA. 

 By George W^heeler, M.A., F.E S. 



(Continued from p. 142.) 



We come now to the smallest and one of the most interesting 

 of the group, probably the most ancestral of the whole genus — 

 older, I think, than varia, older even than merope — the high- 

 mountain species, asteria. This was first named by Freyer in 

 1828, the year in which his first volume was published. He 

 illustrates it quite unmistakably, and writes one of his little 

 square pages about it, but does not give anything that lends 

 itself to quotation by way of a description. He says it is only 

 half the size of dyctinna {sic) — a name he attributes to Ochsen- 



ENTOM. JULY, 1908. P 



