VARIETIES OF NOCTU^ IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 803 



stigmata, and the central area banded, although there is a 

 complete gradation of intermediate forms. There would thus 

 appear to be two varieties in the unicolorous form, — (1) grey, 

 inclining to blackish, with no brown or very little brown ; 

 (2) grey, much suffused with brown, and sometimes entirely 

 reddish brown. In both of these, differences in intensity of 

 colour, and in the development of the tranverse lines, occur. 

 The form most closely allied to these is that in which the dark 

 »-i -like mark* is developed under the stigmata (var. intermedia), 

 and as the space above is generally shaded it gives the specimens 

 a rather banded appearance, as in Newman's 'British Moths,' 

 p. 304, fig. 1, although generally more strongly marked. Of this 

 variety there are two shades of colour, grey and reddish brown. 

 Var. intermedia is distinctly intermediate between the type and 

 the next (var. remissa, Hb.), where the black nn-like mark is 

 extended into a large blackish or brownish patch, extending 

 upwards to the costa between the reniform and orbicular, and 

 connected with another dark patch developed between the two 

 short, longitudinal, basal streaks, and with the space outside the 

 subterminal line of the same dark shade, especially in its central 

 area and at the anal angle ; the inner margin of the wing very 

 clear, and almost immaculate. This extreme form is apparently the 

 remissa of Hiibner and of Treitschke. Of this variety Staudinger 

 writes, " dilutior, variegata." Var. remissa, Tr,, and var. inter- 

 media appear to be united by Guenee to form his var. a, " La 

 Brouillee " of Engramelle (' Noctuelles,' vol. v., p. 208), of the 

 general variation of which Guenee writes: — "It is possible that 

 this may be distinct from gemina." " This Apamea differs from 

 didyma by its generally darker colour, its anterior wings generally 

 a little narrower, and above all by a black streak which unites 

 the two transverse lines below the submedian nervure, leaving 

 between this line and the inner margin a space generally paler 

 than the ground colour. Certain subvarieties have all the sub- 

 terminal space equally clear, and thus somewhat resemble Hadena 

 genista. These are known in collections as submissa.^' This 

 latter is a very rare development, and appears to be the remissa 

 of Hiibner, a slightly more extreme development of the 

 remissa of Treitschke. The only very extreme specimen I 

 have, in a very long series, came from Mr. Finlay, of Morpeth. 

 The remissa of Haworth {' Lepidoptera Britannica,' p. 189, 

 No. 79) is apparently the same as remissa, Tr., to which 

 many of our British specimens are referable, while the var. jS of 

 his remissa appears to refer to Hiibuer's rather more extreme 

 form. The oblonga of Haworth is simply a slight modi- 

 fication of var. intermedia, being a grey form with the costal 

 area, containing the grey stigmata, brownish, the n-j-mark 

 developed, the subterminal line whitish ; the dark fuscous type 



