96 LEPIDOPTERA. 



Always and everywhere variable, as already shown, the 

 commoner forms in the south being some shade of red-brown, 

 pale brown or drab ; in some north-western districts, parti- 

 cularly the North of Ireland, deep dark brown, and in the 

 Scottish Isles bright red-brown. In some specimens in all 

 shades of colour the stigmata are both bright and distinct, in 

 very many the reniform is so, but in other cases, even in the 

 palest specimens, these are obscured or even imperceptible. 

 When they are present the intermediate spot varies from 

 red-brown to black, and where this is dark there is often a 

 blackish cloud outside the reniform stigma, and a blackish- 

 brown costal triangle before the apex. I have one specimen 

 from the North of Ireland of a pale drab with very little 

 trace of either stigma, but having the first and second lines 

 and the attendant dots very prettily distinct. Others from 

 the same district are of a light brick-red, and of the usual 

 dark brown forms of that country many are almost devoid 

 of markings of any kind, and are not always easy to recognise. 

 Some examples from Durham are almost black ; from York- 

 shire they range from rich red to black-brown ; some from 

 Shetland are of very coarse texture of scales and of a deep 

 black-brown with a gloss of reddish and distinctly yellow 

 stigmata. Others from the East of Scotland uniform smooth 

 black-brown, almost black, but scarcely showing the stigmata. 

 Some of the red forms are totally devoid of the transverse 

 lines, while in others they are very conspicuous ; and 

 every variety seems to be connected with the rest by all 

 possible intermediate gradations. Mr. F. J. Hanbury has taken 

 specimens at Shoeburyness, outside the mouth of the Thames, 

 of a pale greyish-drab, almost greyish-white and Avith the 

 hind wings pure white, a very unusual form, yet such another 

 has been obtained in Perthshire. Mr. W. H. B. Fletcher 

 has an example in which the orbicular stigma is elongated 

 into a long wedge-shaped spot. The hind wings in the male 

 vary from pure clear white to forms having a strong grey- 

 brown hind marginal band. 



