26 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



quite light brown, powdered with grey on the borders of the 

 Baltic. Dasycampa rubiginea, lighter shade of colour, and also 

 quite unicolour, Central Germany. Miana literosa, pale slate 

 giey and almost unicolour in various parts of Germany. 



If we now proceed with our examination, and lay a map of 

 Europe before us, it will be found — taking, say Central and 

 Southern Germany as a starting-point — that melanism gradually 

 becomes perceptible as the eye takes a North-west direction, and 

 directly the Channel is crossed has become decidedly marked, if 

 we place even our most southern English forms in juxtaposition 

 with those at our starting-point. As we continue to travel 

 mentally in a North and North-west direction through the British 

 Isles this increases in intensity, until it finally culminates on the 

 western coast of Ireland, and especially in the extreme north of 

 Scotland and outlying islands. 



Returning now to our point of departure, and travelling in 

 imagination due Northwards, the curious feature will appear that 

 no melanism such as ours will be found along the most northern 

 littoral of Germany or Denmark, neither will it be found if we 

 take a north-easterly line through European Russia and Siberia. 

 Stranger still, neither this nor reduced size is apparent when the 

 Arctic Circle is entered ; and the most marked feature which 

 presents itself in high latitudes is in the quite opposite direction 

 of a tendency to light colouring and obliteration of markings. 



[As illustrations I give some of the most marked variations 

 drawn from my own collection, but they could be largely supple- 

 mented. Thus : — Agrotis segetiim, Noctua festiva ? conflua, 

 Tceniocampa gracilis, Pachnohia hyperhorea, Anchocelis rufina, 

 Xanthia gilvago (after passing through a lighter variety, pyrrhago 

 bears on the Amur a close resemblance to Jiavescens), Phlogopliora 

 meticulosa, Hadena pisi, Brephos parthenias = infans, Euclidia 

 glyphica, all have the markings more indistinct and a generally 

 fainter colouring, with a glaucous tendency, not observable in any 

 of our most southern English forms. 



To be, however, impartial, there are a few occurrences in the 

 opposite direction of darker colouring, such as Thyatira derasa, 

 Leucania inipudens (pudorina), L. turca, Noctua pie eta, but all with 

 a glaucous shade. These comparisons might be continued into 

 Canada, where the whole of the Noctuidee bear close resemblance 

 to European and especially British forms, and indeed many are 



