ARCTIID^. 287 



elongation into streaks. Nor does there seem to be any fixed 

 rule as to the order of their suppression, in some individuals 

 all the dots being absent, except the rows of short streaks 

 near the apex and hind margin, in others all except those 

 about the discal cell and in the middle of the wings. One 

 specimen, captured in London, has the dots few and small 

 except round the hind margins of all the wings where they 

 are clustered together, and, with an added row in the cilia, 

 make a very pretty border. In the hind wings the central 

 spot and that near the apex seem to be nearly always present, 

 though the latter is sometimes reduced to a mere speck. 

 Another phase of variation appears to be local or climatal in 

 some degree. It is where the fore wings become yellowish 

 buff, creamy buff, or even of a brownish-ochreous. The 

 head quarters of this range of variation appears to be in 

 Lancashire and other parts of the north-west of England, and 

 in the north of Ireland including Belfast. Specimens from 

 these districts, varying in tone of colour, also take the usual 

 variations in number and disposition of the black dots ; and 

 some of the paler buff forms are rendered more beautiful 

 by having the nervures broadly white. Doubtless the same 

 tendency exists in the west of Scotland, for Mr. J. J. F. X. 

 King has the brownest specimen yet seen, obtained from 

 that district. Specimens from other parts of Scotland, the 

 east especially, show a tendency to alteration of the spots into 

 black streaks lying between the nervures. Mr. W. H. Tugwell 

 has one such from Forfarshire, and Mr. S. J. Capper speci- 

 mens in successive stages, from spots to long black streaks, 

 brought from the East of Scotland. One specimen, taken in 

 Scotland seventy years ago by Sir Patrick Walker, and named 

 Walkeri by Curtis, shows an exaggeration of this tendency 

 in a remarkable degree, its fore wings being filled in between 

 the nervures with black in the manner of the var. radiata of 

 S. luhricepeda. This specimen is now in the collection of 

 Dr. Mason at Burton-on-Trent. It differs from the variety 

 just mentioned in having normal white hind wings. Mr. 



