NOTES ON CERTAIN SCOPARI-E. Ill 



not deny the possibility or even probability of these (let us say 

 "forms") being identical, it does not at present seem to me 

 advisable that my good friend the late Henry Doubleday's 

 specific name "atomalis''' should be dropped until something 

 definite respecting their earlier stages has been worked out. 



The figures here given are reproduced by shadowless photo- 

 graphy, talc having been substituted in place of glass, which I 

 recommended in a recent suggestion (Entom. vol. xxx. p. 265) ; 

 the enlargement of all the figures is the same, namely, about 

 two and a half diameters. 



A comparison between basistrigalis, Knaggs, and ambigualis, 

 Tr., is our next consideration. Your older readers will probably 

 remember that in 1866 1 described the former species in the 

 pages of the E. M. M. (vol. iii. p. 1), and that I then drew atten- 

 tion to the greater width of the fore wing, its rounded apex and 

 vertical hind margin ; also to the oblique commencement of the 

 angulated first line, the denticulated second line, the distinct 

 basal streaks, the cilia neatly intersected with black squares, &c. 



Messrs. Bankes (E.M.M. n. a. vol. i. p. 7) and Briggs (Entom. 

 vol. xxii. p. 17 ; E. M. M. n. s. vol. i. p. 51), in their revisions of 

 the Scopariae, have not yet offered an opinion as to the identity 

 of basistrigolis with, or its distinctness from, ainhigualis, but 

 suspend their judgment until they have seen the insect in a state 

 of nature. Since then some very strong evidence in favour of 

 the specific status of basistrigalis has been recorded ; in fact, in 

 the very next number of the E M. M. after my friend Mr. Briggs's 

 communication, my old correspondent, Mr, G. T. Porritt, of 

 Huddersfield, contributed a most interesting note (E. M. M. n. s. 

 vol. i. p. 88) on the subject, from which I extract the following : 

 " If Mr. Tutt, or any of your other correspondents who doubt 

 the distinctness of basistrigalis from ambigualis, had seen the 

 former in the numbers I and several other lepidopterists saw it 

 in Edlington Wood, near Doncaster, on Aug. 4th, 1879, I fancy 

 their doubts would have for ever been dissipated. ... I remem- 

 ber distinctly that on seeing the first specimen on that occasion, 

 although I had never seen the insect alive before, I at once 

 recognised it as basistrigalis ; and, on calling the late William 

 Prest, of York, who was working some distance from me, he, on 

 coming up and seeing the specimen on the tree, instantly said, 

 * basistrigalis.' . . . Although I suppose I have seen thousands of 

 ambigualis in all sorts of localities, I have never seen any I was 

 inclined to suspect might be basistrigalis.'" Mr. Porritt refers 

 also to its broader fore wings, as compared with allied species, 

 and mentions its erratic disappearance from Edlington Wood. 

 He adds that Mr. Prest subsequently took it in Bishop's Wood, 

 near Selby. 



About five years after this Mr. B. A. Bower, a gentleman who 

 seems to have made basistrigalis one of his special studies. 



