125 
CAPTURES AND FIELD REPORTS. 
PHIGALIA PEDARIA ab. MONACHARIA.—Ten or twelve years ago I 
took an example of this melanic aberration in Charnwood Forest. 
In 1908 I took another specimen in the same locality, which I 
brought home and placed in a breeding-cage, a roomy contrivance 
with many chinks, with a typical female that had emerged from a 
larva taken in the same wood. I did not notice that they paired, but 
subsequently I found a few eggs laid around and in the groove of a 
screw-head and in a joint adjacent to it. It was hardly possible to 
get at these, and I waited till they hatched, as a result of which some 
doubtless escaped ; at all events I only reared some two dozen larve 
or thereabouts. The moths emerged in March last from 18th to 23rd, 
with the exception of a single male which appeared on Feb. 21st, 
after which a long spell of cold weather ensued. The sexes were in 
equal proportion, eleven males and eleven females. Of the males 
four were ab. monacharia, seven were typical, and there were no 
intermediate forms; of the females eight appeared to be more or less 
typical—that is, the under side was copiously sprinkled with pale 
grey or whitish, but the abdomen above in two examples was 
brownish, in six blackish. The three remaining specimens were 
black above, and the light grey powdering beneath was confined to 
the thorax and legs, the under side of the abdomen being uniformly 
dark grey or blackish. I was able to pair two of these dark females 
with black males and obtained ova, and I also paired a couple of 
typical males and females of the same stock. If I am successful in 
rearing the progeny, the results will be of some interest. This black 
variety or aberration of P. pedaria extends apparently over a con- 
siderable area in the county of Leicester. It has been taken at 
Knighton on the outskirts of Leicester, and, I think, also at Market 
Bosworth by Mr. F. Bouskell, and in Charnwood Forest, as mentioned 
above. An example has also been reported this year from Measham, 
in the extreme north-west of the county.—(Rev.) W. G. WHITTINGHAM; 
Knighton Vicarage, Leicester. 
AM@BE OLIVATA IN Aprin.—A newly emerged Larentia (Amebe) 
olivata at Beaconsfield, April 18th.—C. G. Douautry; 27, South 
Molton Street, W., April 19th, 1909. 
BREPHOS PARTHENIAS AT SALLOW-BLOOM. — This pretty moth 
came freely to sallow-catkins in Delamere Forest, April 10th. From 
a solitary bush, with a net fixed to the end of a bamboo eight or ten 
feet long, I could have taken thirty to forty specimens in a couple of 
hours, possibly more. Their chief feeding-time seemed to diminish 
towards noon. The exceptional numbers on this occasion were 
doubtless due to the warm, sunny day. A Vanessa urtice also paid 
a lengthened visit to the same bush.—J. ArKLE; Chester. 
HYBERNIA MARGINARIA var. FUSCATA.—This variety occurs fre- 
quently in Leicestershire, but the proportion of the true variety, 
uniformly dark brownish with the markings imperceptible or nearly 
so, is not greater, as far as my observation goes, than five per cent. 
It varies in the depth of the colour. Examples, however, are much 
more common in which, while the markings are conspicuous, the 
