180 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



E. fasciaria, and of comparing it with that of his E. prasi- 

 naria, he certainly would never have separated them in his 



* Species Generales des Lepidopteres,' In ray opinion the 

 two constitute but a single species. E. fasciaria, which is 

 the type, inhabits our neighbourhood, the larva feeding on 

 the needles of Pinus sylveslris and other conifers. Pursuing 

 my researches year after year into this subject, I have just 

 obtained a result which appears conclusive. A full-fed larva 

 found in May, on a fir tree on one of our mountains, almost 

 immediately became a pupa, and after a few days the perfect 

 insect appeared. It was a variety having the ground green, 

 washed with flesh-colour ; and it constitutes, most unmis- 

 takably, a connecting link betw'een fasciaria and prasinaria, 

 approaching the latter in the green ground, and the former 

 in the flesh-colour which appears on the costa, the rays and 

 the cilia." I have extracted this passage from Milliere's 



* Iconographie,' thinking it a matter of interest that a point of 

 this kind should be definitively settled. It w'ill be recollected 

 that Guenee keeps these two insects apart, introducing a 

 third, Ellopia Manitiaria of Herrich-Sch8eff"er, between them. 

 Under E. prasinaria he has the following observation, to 

 which Milliere alludes in the foregoing extract : — " Modern 

 authors are generally agreed in considering this a variety of 

 E. fasciaria. As I have not seen many specimens of that 

 species, and am unacquainted with the preparatory states of 

 both, my opinion can have no great weight. Nevertheless, 

 I may observe that while E. fasciaria is common in England, 

 E. prasinaria is entirely unknown there. According to Evers- 

 mann this is also the case in Russia, and Sepp only 

 figures it in his ' Lepidoptera of Holland,' although he had 

 reared it from the larva. In Germany, on the contrary, E. 

 prasinaria is the more common of the two, and has been 

 reared from the egg without the occurrence of a single spe- 

 cimen of E. fasciaria. M. Delaharpe, not content with 

 reducing these two Ellopias to the rank of varieties, adds 

 that the slightest fumes of an acid transforms E. prasinaria 

 into E. fasciaria, so that it is no longer to be regarded as a 

 geographical or accidental variety, but as a chemical variety. 

 This is going too far ; for, if we admit that acids may change 

 the green of E. prasinaria into a red exactly resembling that 

 of E. fasciaria, I can scarcely believe they possess the 



