54 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



partly by breeding — a grand series of 0. autumnata, of which 

 it is highly desirable that a selection should be figured and 

 discussed. Mr. Christy suggested to me that this would form 

 an appropriate opportunity for clearing up some of the confusion 

 which still exists regarding this species and its allies, and that, 

 as I have been studying them very closely for some time, I 

 should be a suitable person to take the task in hand. This I 

 have great pleasure in doing ; and at the same time I am 

 following a further suggestion, both from him and from Mr. 

 South, in figuring, for comparison, some examples of the allied 

 filigrammaria, H.-8., and dilutata, Bork. 



A few preliminary remarks appear necessary in view of the 

 confusion just alluded to. In the first place, I may perhaps be 

 allowed to call attention to the fact that I read before the City 

 of London Entomological Society on May 4th, 1897, a paper on 

 " The Genus Oporahia,'" which was mainly historical, and that 

 the more important parts of this were published in the ' Ento- 

 mologist's Kecord ' for 1897, pp. 247, 282, and 315. Readers 

 who want to see a summary of the writings and opinions of 

 Doubleday, Weaver, Gregson, Stainton, and others should consult 

 that paper. After further investigations, I sent to the ' Ento- 

 mologist's Record ' for April, 1898 (vol. x. p. 93), a supplemen- 

 tary note, in which I showed that the autiimnaria of our English 

 writers was also indisputably the autumnata of Borkhausen, and 

 left the question open whether autumnata, Gn., No. 1334, was or 

 was not a form of the same species ; proposing for this last the pro- 

 visional name of gueneata, in order to avoid collision with autum- 

 nata, Bork. I have since worked out the life-history of 0. autumnata, 

 my good friend Mr. A. Home, of Aberdeen, having kindly supplied 

 me with eggs in the first instance, while the results arrived at 

 were further verified in 1899 upon eggs supplied by Mr. Christy, 

 and by Mr. J. E. R. Allen, of Enniskillen, who is also following 

 up this species with interest, and to whom my thanks are due 

 for much valuable information. I wrote an exhaustive paper on 

 the life-history of the species, and read it at a meeting of the 

 City of London Entomological Society last spring ; as this will 

 shortly appear in their ' Transactions,' I need not go into the 

 subject here, but will merely indicate as concisely as possible 

 the most important results of my voluminous notes, my hardly 

 less voluminous correspondence, my omnivorous reading of the 

 literature of the genus, and my study of material in such collec- 

 tions as the old Stephensian collection at Cromwell Road, the 

 Doubleday collection, the Zeller collection, those of Messrs. J. 

 H. Leech, Sidney Webb, W. M. Christy, J. E. R. Allen, and 

 others. 



In the first place, I can positively assert that there are two 

 totally distinct species of Oporahia, both common in Northern 

 and Central Europe, which are nearly always confused as one, 



