198 LEPIDOPTERA. 



transverse strijDes of the fore wings is absent, leaving a broad 

 yellow central fascia, although rare, has shown itself to be 

 somewhat recurrent in both sexes, and even in one or two 

 cases has produced a modification of the under side, one half 

 of the hind wings being devoid of the usual markings. One 

 such was taken near Pembroke by the Rev. A. H. Wratislaw, 

 and is now in the collection of Mr. J. B. Hodgkinson ; I have 

 another. Then the somewhat blackened forms already men- 

 tioned occasionally occur as aberrations in unexpected districts 

 — in Kent, for instance, where Mr. Webb has obtained speci- 

 mens almost as dark as the Irish ; and at Odiham, Hants, 

 where Mr. W. Holland has found some much suffused with 

 black, and having a broad blackish fascia ; while others had a 

 broad yellowish band, and one also the accompanying absence 

 of markings of the under side of the hind wings. Perhaps the 

 palest known are from Sussex, whence Mr. H. Goss has some 

 interesting specimens, almost of a straw colour ; and the occur- 

 rence in Argyllshire of typical fulvous examples among the 

 yellow-spotted and dark northern forms is equally remark- 

 able. In the collection of the late Mr. H. Doubleday, at 

 Bethnal Green Museum, is a very fine series having the 

 nervures and transverse bands broadly black, and the rows of 

 pale spaces creamy or white, an extreme of the western 

 variation, of which the locality is not known. In addition to 

 all these local strains, aberrations are occasionally met with 

 which seem to be purely casual, as one from Epping Forest, 

 in Mr. J. A. Clarke's collection, in which the wings are black 

 from the base to the middle, except three small pale spots, 

 but beyond having a broad pale fulvous fascia; in the 

 collection of the late Mr. Nicholas Cooke, in the Liverpool 

 Museum, is one almost entirely of a very dull brown, the 

 only markings visible being those of the hind margins ; Mr. 

 C. A. Briggs has two from Gloucestershire entirely suffused 

 with brown except one red band and two or three red spots ; 

 and Mr. S. Stevens, a very large bright fulvous specimen closely 

 resembling the singular variety Desfontainii, Godart, an Italian 



