LI PARI DAL. ■ 3" 



first and second lines ; in such specimens the other markings 

 are also thickened aud often run into blotches. Another phase 

 of variation is that of the form well known on the Continent 

 under the name of eremita, in which the wings are wholly 

 suffused with smoky black, the markings usually showing 

 slightly through it. In this country several entomologists, 

 by assiduously rearing from the darkest forms of a selected 

 dark stock, have nearly, if not quite, succeeded in producing 

 this variety. Old specimens nearly approaching to it also exist 

 in several of the larger collections ; and a single example was 

 taken at Brandon in 1875 by Dr. F. D. Wheeler. In the 

 course of the experiments just mentioned, carried on by 

 Messrs. Fletcher, Fenn, Hall, and others, for production of 

 black specimens, other very pretty forms have been evolved, 

 some of a silky yellowish grey, others with the whole central 

 area black, or wholly of a pale smoky or a sooty black, and 

 of these some, not so handsome, have casual irregular white 

 blotches. It is worthy of note that the black suffusion, when 

 present, extends equally to the hind wings. Mr. S. Webb has 

 a very singular aberration, of normal colouring, but the black 

 markings are deprived of the usual elongated points, curves 

 taking their place throughout. 



On the wing at the end of July and in August. 



Larva stout, hairy, flattened, the lateral spots swollen into 

 tubercles emitting tufts of dark greyish-brown hairs ; dorsal 

 spots with bunches of inconspicuous blackish bristles ; second 

 segment with a conspicuous tubercle on each side, projecting 

 forwards, and furnished with a tuft of long hairs ; pro-legs 

 rather sprawling, the anal pair extended backwards. Whitish, 

 pale grey, or greenish grey dusted with blackish, with a 

 broad brown dorsal band extending between the sub-dorsal 

 lines, which are black and sinuous. This dorsal band is 

 conspicuously interrupted by a paler blotch of the ground 

 colour on the fourth, eighth, and ninth segments, and is 

 divided by the broad inconspicuous dorsal line. The pale 



