TRIFIDAL. 369 



orbicular stigma, and the whitish margins of an obscure red 

 reniform stigma ; beyond this the costal margin is obscurely 

 dotted with white ; along the hind marginal area is au inter- 

 rupted series of long wedge-shaped clouds of chocolate-red, 

 and at the anal ang-le a triangle of the same colour: extreme 

 hind margin edged with black lunules ; cilia long and dis- 

 tinctly crenulated, chocolate-red with paler dashes, the whole 

 barred with darker red-brown. Hind wings dull smoky- 

 brown ; nervures hardly darker ; cilia mixed pale brown and 

 white, with an intersecting darker brown line. Female very 

 similar, but the ground colour of the fore wings often rather 

 whiter and the chocolate blotches more tinged with dark 

 purple ; body rather stouter, with small anal tuft. 



Uuderside of the fore wings smoky light red ; dorsal 

 margin paler; nervures strongly expressed and pale-edged; 

 reniform stigma a dark smoky cloud. Hind wings shining 

 reddish-white, the costal region broadly light purple-red, 

 dusted with darker ; nervures dusted with brown ; central 

 spot lunate, black ; hind margin edged with black lunules ; 

 cilia yellowish-red, tipped with white. Body and legs light 

 purplish-red ; tibige purple-brown, barred with white. 



Along with the typical form as already described is found, 

 apparently everywhere, though in the South far less commonly, 

 a permanently recurrent variety known as comhiista, having 

 no trace of the ordinary ground colour, the thorax and fore 

 wings being uniformly dull purple-red or liver-colour, with 

 the markings scarcely visible, but the stigmata rather paler 

 and the reniform slightly tinged with yellow ; this form is 

 more frequent in the north, and in Scotland in some districts 

 becomes predominant, the colour also deeper, the nervures 

 blackened, and the edge of the reniform stigma distinctly 

 yellow or even orange. Another form, found more particu- 

 larly in the South of Scotland, is extremely beautiful ; it is 

 in some degree like the type, but the ground colour is of a 

 beautifully smooth silvery-white, shaded with ashy-grey, with 

 the purple-brpwn clouds and blotches intensified, sometimes 

 VOL. IV, 2 A 



