332 LEPIDOPTERA. 



all edged with black ; cilia smoky-brown with a paler line 

 at their base. Hind wings whitish at the base, with the 

 nervures dark brown, and the hinder portion clouded with 

 smoky-brown, darkest toward the margin ; central spot 

 smoky-grey, indistinct ; cilia white. Female very similar 

 but with threadlike antennee, stouter body, and hind wings 

 darker. 



Underside of the fore wings shining pale grey, dusted 

 with white along the costal region, apex, and hind margin ; 

 sometimes with faintly paler, or darker, clouding about the 

 reniform stigma; hind wings white, broadly dusted with 

 grey upon the costal region and toward the hind margin ; 

 cilia white. 



Variation in this species, in spite of the obscurity of its 

 markings, is very considerable ; in the ground colour espe- 

 cially- — to umbreous, clay-red, purple-red, reddish-brown, 

 pale brown and pale purple-brown, in the southern and 

 eastern counties and the Fen districts ; to blackish, with 

 yellow reniform stigma, in the north and north-west ; and 

 to almost jet black in Ireland. In some instances, irrespec- 

 tive of darker or paler colour, the markings become distinct, 

 and are even added to, a black spot preceding the orbicular 

 stigma, and a square black or brown blotch occupying the 

 space between that and the reniform stigma ; while the first 

 and second lines are occasionally bordered with yellowish, 

 or the reniform stigma is more distinctly yellow, or is quite 

 of the ground colour ; in which last case all the markings 

 are usually obliterated, leaving the wings unicolorous, or 

 mottled with the faintest possible confused black streaks. 

 Of these the dull black and black-brown forms, with 

 yellowish edging to one or both stigmata, were formerly 

 looked upon as a distinct species under the name of 

 A. fwmosa; while those of more reddish colour, with the 

 interspaces of the discal cell black, appear to have been 

 known as A. obcliscata ; and light red or clay-coloured 

 specimens without the black inter-stigmatic spots as A. runs. 



