258 LEPIDOPTERA. 



beauty, the underside colouring being at the same time 

 quite brilliant. The late Mr. Nicholas Cooke of Liverpool, 

 used to spend whole days in the mosses, searching for the 

 most handsomely marked specimens with the largest ringed 

 spots, and as a natural consequence, his collection, now in 

 the public museum at Liverpool, contains the most extra- 

 ordinaiy examples of which I have any knowledge, some of 

 the females, in particular, showing spots of remarkable size 

 and brilliancy. In similar situations in other parts of 

 Lancashire, Yorkshu-e, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and the 

 south of Scotland, are found other variations of the redder 

 forms, some of them almost of a unicolorous reddish olive, or 

 olive brown, with the spots obscure above, but distinct below, 

 and the dark portion of the hind wings beneath, partly 

 reddish, partly greenish or ashy, with, in addition, every 

 imaginable intermediate gradation of colour and spotting, 

 above and below, so that the varietal names quoted are 

 merely vague expressions. For a fine series of the various 

 Lancashire forms, I am indebted to Mr. J. Collins of 

 Warrington and Mr. F. N. Pierce of Liverpool ; for those from 

 the north of Ireland, to the Rev. W. F. Johnson of Armagh ; 

 and for those from Killarney, to Mr. Chas. Watts of Belfast. 



Aberrations outside the general range of variation, appear 

 to be rare. Mr. J. E. Wellman has one in which the spots 

 are but faintly marked on the upper side, yet beneath, in the 

 middle of the row on the hind wings, one is extremely large, 

 conspicuous, and doubled. A specimen from Paisley in my 

 collection has the margins and nervures broadly suffused 

 with dark brown, which also extensively clouds the wings, 

 and another from Killarney, also dark margined, has the 

 sub-apical spot of the fore wings entirely pale yellow 

 and conspicuous in the bi'own colour. 



On the wing at the end of June and through July. 



Larva, when full grown, one inch in length, head globular, 

 body tapering towards the forked anal extremity. Bright 



