i6 LEPTDOPTF.RA. 



southern districts it takes the range already described — 

 ground colour yellow-drab, yellow-brown, reddish-drab, or 

 greyish-drab ; markings rather in the direction of their 

 obliteration than otherwise, so that some individuals exhibit 

 a lovely smooth creamy-brown appearance almost devoid of 

 markings. This creamy colour seems to be rather restricted 

 to the south, but the general range of colouring, as described, 

 appears to prevail throughout the United Kingdom, the 

 markings becoming a little more pronounced in the north ; 

 but more decidedly so in the Orkneys, where both orbicular 

 and reniform stigmata are distinctly dark-brown, and the 

 subterminal dark stripe of the fore wings very conspicuous. 

 In North Wales there is a tendency in the direction of grey- 

 brown colouring with the mai'kings still indistinct ; and in 

 the North of Ireland to a warm reddish ground colour, as 

 also is the case in Arran and in the vScilly Isles, but so far as 

 the British Isles are concerned the most interesting forms 

 are found in the North-east of Scotland, especially in Moray- 

 shire. These take a very different range of ground colour — 

 though accompanied by plenty of typical specimens and 

 intermediate forms — deep claret-red, red-black, brown-black, 

 deep rich red-brown, rosy-brown, dark liver-colour, or pur- 

 plish drab ; the two stigmata sometimes of the same colour 

 with slender yellow margins, often blacker with th*^ margins 

 yellow or white ; in some of these the transverse lines are 

 pale and there is a marbling of yellowish over the surface ; 

 in others every line and every incidental curved streak or 

 dot is accentuated or duplicated, or on the other hand, the 

 whole dark or red surface is smooth and glossy, with little 

 indication of the transverse lines. With this there is often in 

 the hind wings a suffusion over the yellow surface of smoky- 

 black, till in some instances most of the yellow of the middle 

 area is so beclouded as to become nearly black. This darken- 

 ing extends only in a very small degree to the cilia. Among 

 a large brood obtained from eggs of this strain Mr. J. A. 

 Clark has reared specimens having one hind wing of a whitish- 



