242 LEPIDOPTERA. 



wing with the brighter colour. This appears to occur 

 casually all over the country, and in every possible grada- 

 tion of distinctness, but is most strikingly shown in speci- 

 mens from the North of Scotland and of Ireland, which are 

 large in size as well as rich in colour, and very glossy in 

 both sexes, even showing purple reflections when looked at 

 from behind. This variation has been named Splcndida by 

 Dr. Buchanan White, and is nearly identical with that named 

 Hi!>2)ulln by Hiibner, except that in the latter the orange 

 band of the hind wings is more distinct. There is also much 

 diversity in the depth of the brown and fulvous colouring in 

 this sex, and in the form and size of the sub-apical black 

 spot, which also has occasionally an attendant dot below it. 

 Mr. W. H. Tugwell has one in which this dot has become a 

 second pupillated spot. Another form of the female, of rare 

 occurrence, but existing in several of our best collections, 

 has the ordinarily dark-brown portions of the wings pale 

 drab or whitish, with the middle portions broadly fulvous — 

 indeed, glaringly so — and is a very singular-looking insect ; 

 a particularly striking example was taken by ]\Ir. Holland 

 near Reading. Another strange aberration, to which many 

 of the brown species of this group are liable, but the 

 present more especially, consists in an irregular, arbitrary, 

 and usually unsymmetrical substitution of white for 

 brown scales. This occurs in both sexes indifferently, some- 

 times in one wing, at others in two on the same side, or 

 on opposite sides, the only rule being, apparently, that the 

 outer half of any wing is more liable to it than the inner. 

 In many cases the outer margin is the whitest portion, and 

 gradually inwards the natural dark colour asserts itself. 

 In the female such specimens have often a bleached and 

 miserable look, but the greater glossiness of the male 

 softens it off, so that a specimen of a smoky brown at the 

 base of one hind wing softening off to a glistening creamy 

 white at the outer margin would, if both hind wings were 

 alike, be a very pretty form. There is even in this phase of 



