NOTES ON BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 35 
typical festiva, but when an extensive series of festiva, com- 
prising specimens from all parts of Britain, is examined, the 
impossibility of specifically separating conflua will be admitted. 
An attempt has recently been made to establish the Shetland 
form of festiva as the true British representative of Treitschke’s 
conflua. Although it might possibly be a present convenience to 
adopt a name for an insect which does not properly belong to it, 
the expedient would certainly lead to future confusion. The 
Shetland form of festiva is as distinct from conflua of Treitschke 
as it is from Hubner’s type of festiva ; therefore, we must retain 
for it the varietal name of thulei, which has already been given 
to it by Dr. Staudinger, I believe, but [ am not quite certain of 
the author. Thulei undoubtedly appears to be specifically dis- 
tinct from festiva, and if it were not for the fact that it is clearly 
connected by intermediate forms with that species, I should be 
inclined to consider it distinct. As I have mentioned above, 
this form is fairly uniform in wing-expansion, but it varies con- 
siderably in colour and ornamentation, some of the specimens 
being almost fuliginous brown, with pale greyish brown trans- 
verse lines, with or without black spots between stigmata ; others 
are pale reddish brown, with indistinct paler transverse lines, but 
the space between outer line and submarginal band filled up 
with dark brown, and the three sections of black discoidal 
streak exposed. One specimen is pale greyish, with paler 
transverse bands in place of the usual lines, the discal area is 
clouded with brownish, and the space between the outer and 
submarginal bands conspicuously darker; the hind wings have 
a darker lunule and pale central line. The majority of the 
specimens are grey-brown or dark reddish brown, with the space 
enclosed by each of the double transverse lines paler ; the space 
between outer line and submarginal band always, and that 
between basal and first lines sometimes, filled up with darker ; 
the reniform and orbicular stigmata, with usual black spots, 
are generally well-defined, and the claviform is sometimes bar- 
shaped. The hind wings are always fuscous grey-brown ; the 
fringes are ochreous, frequently, but not invariably, tinged with 
pinkish ; a distinct central lunule is rather the exception than 
the rule. 
Subrufa (Haworth=festiva, Hubner, 467 and 468) is the form 
without black spots between the stigmata or before the orbicular. 
Godart’s figure (pl. 62, fig. 1, dahlii) may represent a modification 
of this form, but certainly is not dahli. 
Congener (Hubner, 617 =festiva 2 Godart, pl. 61, fig. 5) is 
reddish in tint, especially on the median area; all the markings 
well-defined. Neither of these forms are uncommon. 
In some specimens of N. festiva from Germany, in Mr. 
Leech’s collection, the discoidal cell is occupied by an intensely 
black cuneiform streak, which extends from the inner edge of 
