14 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



to friends years ago as deserving a varietal name, but it was a 

 great surprise, I suspect, to others as well as to myself, when 

 Mr. Clark gave it this one. Of course he was in error when he 

 said this plain-coloured moth had been known many years in 

 our sale-rooms under this name, and Clark afterwards ('Record,' 

 vol. xvi, p. 145) corrects the impression his article may have 

 made upon his readers by giving Mr. Johnson's definition of 

 qamjnnana as originally described ; but unfortunately he does 

 not withdraw his own erroneous name, so that this well-marked 

 and distinctive variety still awaits a befitting title, and I would 

 propose that it be known as ab. clarJdana.'" 



Unfortunately for Mr. Webb's name of this form, it does not 

 matter in the least what Clark did or did not do, because, as 

 Mr. Webb says, the form Clark named gumpiana had the name 

 gumpinana given to it by Johnson very many years previously, 

 and this being so, in accordance with the law of priority, the 

 latter's name stands and all others fall. The synonymy of this 

 form therefore is ab. gumpinana, Johnson, 1842 =: ab. qump'iana, 

 Clark, 1901 = ab. clarkiana, Webb, 1910. 



Mr. Webb follows the above note by a very interesting 

 observation in which he says : " The gumpinana, not gumpiana, 

 of our older collectors has the central tuft, vitta and smaller five 

 tufts white, the < angle enclosed between the apex and anal 

 angle, narrowing to the tuft, of the palest violet slate colour, 

 with a narrow red line from the central tuft to near the apex, 

 and an interrupted white dash dividing into two lines below it. 

 The basal part of the wing tinged with reddish brown, and the 

 first two-thirds of the upper part of the wing towards the costa 

 a dirty yellow ; this is divided from the central tuft by an 

 extremely pale inconspicuous yellow fascia which seldom crosses 

 the wing. All the colours are very subdued, and the moths 

 thin-scaled generally. Head and thorax white." 



This form is at j^resent without a name, and I propose to 

 transfer to it the name ab. clarkiania, for most unquestionably 

 the name of the late J. A. Clark, who did so much to make the 

 variation of P. cristana interesting, should be permanently 

 associated with it. I have recently received a specimen of this 

 form from the New Forest, and Mr. South has another one from 

 the same locality which was captured in 1905. 



In looking through Mr. South's fine and extensive series of 

 P. cristana the other .day, I found that he had a considerable 

 number of ab. lichotana, Curtis, and also a few of profanana, Fab.', 

 all from the New Forest. These three forms are additions to my 

 list of aberrations found there, and will increase the total number 

 to fifty-seven. 



Youlgreave, South Croydon, 

 December, 1917. 



EKK-i^TtiM. — On page 271, line 18, for " mixed," read " raised." 



