140 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



it then, and now considerable search is necessary to discover two or 

 three plants. — Harold J. Burktll ; 21, Avenue Victoria, Scarborough. 



The Tephrosia Discussion. — It is perhaps fortunate that we have 

 few species of Lepidoptera to perplex us to the same extent that the 

 two insects known as hiundularia and erepusciilaria have done. Happily, 

 however, there appears reasonable prospect of our being put in pos- 

 session of facts of a more satisfactory character than the bulk of those 

 of which we have present knowledge. The microscope is to be 

 brought to bear on structural details of the imago, and we are to have 

 comparative descriptions of the ova, larvae, &c. Several careful workers 

 are engaged in investigating these important matters ; and it is pro- 

 bable that the results of their research will definitely settle the "one 

 or two species " question. — R. S. 



On the Irish Tephrosia biundularia. — I have read with the 

 greatest interest Mr. Kane's valuable note on the occurrence in 

 Ireland of the species which he records under the above name {ante, 

 p. 105), and should like to offer one or two remarks thereon. In order 

 to avoid possible confusion in the future, it seems necessary to point 

 out that the single-brooded Irish Tephrosia with which he deals is not 

 the T. hiundularia of Borkhausen = abietaria, Hw. = laricaria, Dbld., 

 Sta. Man. {vide South's List, p. 12 ; Briggs, in E. M. M. xxxii. p. 36 ; 

 and Ent. Rec. viii. p. 76), but is the true T. crepuscidaria of Hiibner, 

 which Doubleday, in his second Catalogue, incorrectly calls biundularia, 

 an error in which he is followed by most present-day English writers ; 

 hence Mr. Kane's mistake. If our entomologists do not care to follow 

 me in resuscitating Goetze's obsolete name of bistortata (1781) for our 

 double-brooded species, Stainton's 'Manual' (ii. p. 28, 29) may quite 

 safely be used as authority: — T. crepuscidaria, Hb., Sta. Manual = 

 Mr. Kane's Irish species ; T. laricaria, Dbld., Sta. Manual = bistortata, 

 Goetze, which is not yet recorded for Ireland. With regard to the 

 "important matter" of the colour and pattern variation "in con- 

 junction with a different period of emergence," which I understand 

 Mr. Kane to say would settle for him the question of the existence of 

 two species if placed "beyond controversy by long series with full 

 data," plenty of our English collections furnish such ; and if no one 

 has adduced particular instances in recent contributions to the con- 

 troversy, it is probably to avoid repetition of what has already been 

 repeatedly published to that effect (see, for example, Entom. xix. 98, 

 158, &c.). I suppose the matter will not be allowed to rest until every 

 provincial entomologist has seen with his own eyes series of the two 

 insects, arranged with full data, in the way Mr. Kane suggests. It is 

 evidently useless for writers to say that the;/ have series so arranged. — 

 Louis B. Prout ; 216, Richmond Road, N.E., April 12th, 1897. 



Tephrosia biundularia (or T. crepuscularia?). — Now that the 

 time has come round again for the appearance of Tephrosia biundularia, 

 the following extracts from my note-books may interest the readers of 

 the 'Entomologist.' Into the controversy as to whether or not 2\ cre- 

 puscularia and T. hiundularia are one and the same species I am not 

 capable of entering, as I have never seen the larva of what is known 

 as T. crepuscularia. But I hope to get eggs during the season, and to 



