TRIFID^. 307 



position ; hind margin usually clouded with smoky-brown, in 

 which is an irregular paler subterminal line or series of faint 

 pale cloudy spots ; orbicular stigma rather small, either 

 round, ovate, or elongated, edged, and often filled up with 

 black-brown ; reniform stigma large, broad, and conspicuous, 

 black, or else edged and nearly filled with black ; claviform 

 stigma long, deep black, shaped like a canine tooth or the 

 upper portion of a thick note of exclamation ! These three 

 stigmata are usually the only conspicuous markings on the 

 smooth brown surface of the wing. Cilia glossy pale brown, 

 clouded with dark brown. Hind wings white, nervures and 

 sometimes the hind marginal line brownish ; cilia white. 

 Antennae of the female simple ; fore wings longer and 

 more truncate, and often of a deeper or redder brown ; 

 markings generally more obscure ; hind wings usually tinged 

 with grey-brown, sometimes very darkly so, except that the 

 base, or at any rate a dash or two from the base, is usually 

 whitish ; body rather stouter ; in other respects as in the 

 male. 



Underside of fore wings in the male pale grey, with a 

 golden gloss especially at the margins ; a faintly blackish 

 cloud at the reniform stigma, and beyond it a rather curved 

 smoky-grey transverse stripe ; cilia glossy pale brown. 

 Hind wings white, dusted along the costa to the apex with 

 greyish-brown ; and with a narrow, curved, cloudy transverse 

 stripe chiefly visible upon the nervures ; cilia white, brownish 

 at the apex of the wing. Body light brown; leg tufts 

 darker brown, dull ; legs brown, with blackish dashes. 

 Female with the fore wings uniform deep brown ; hind wings 

 extensively blotched or shaded with brown or grey-brown. 



Variable in almost every respect — in the ground colour 

 from pale drab or pale brownish-grey to deep dark red brown 

 or even smoky-black. 1 have a specimen taken in Cheshire 

 which is almost black, and Mr. G. T. Porritt has a Yorkshire 

 example of an extremely dark purple brown. In the grey- 

 brown forms there is, not unfrequently, a mottling of whitish 



