338 LEPIDOPTERA. 



lunulas ; cilia pale grey with whitish dashes. Hind wings 

 white or whitish, with the whole costal region and hind 

 margin broadly, or narrowly, dusted and clouded with dark 

 grey atoms ; nervures and central lunule dark grey ; very 

 rarely a dark streak from the costa indicates the commence- 

 ment of what should usually be a transverse stripe — here 

 absent. Body brown, anal tuft reddish ; legs blackish, 

 barred with white ; leg tufts whitish, greyer in front. 



Variation in this species is so extensive as hardly to be 

 defined by words, while all the forms, however extreme, are 

 so completely united by all intermediate gradations that no 

 satisfactory line can be drawn between any of the different 

 varieties, though the names which have been applied to them 

 are sufficiently numerous. The ground colour varies from 

 whitish-brown through all shades of wainscot-brown, greyish- 

 brown, reddish-brown, umbreous, chocolate-brown, and rich 

 purple-brown, to deep brown-black. Specimens may even be 

 found though rarely, of a pale slate-grey or whitish-grey, and 

 others of a soft fawn colour. In my own experience such as 

 these have occurred in Norfolk, where, on the other hand, I 

 have found my blackest specimens. Elsewhere the blacker 

 forms seem to be more particularly confined to the west 

 coast of Ireland and the north and west coast of Scotland. In 

 markings the variations are perhaps a little more defined. 

 Ordinarily in all the variations of ground colour the 

 orbicular and reniform stigmata are visible, either wholly 

 pale or with pale margins ; though in size the orbicular is far 

 from constant. With these, especially in the coast forms, is 

 usually the pale subcostal stripe — white, yellowish-brown, 

 brownish, or even reddish — and in a considerable proportion 

 of them a whitish line branches off from the stripe along the 

 median nervure. In all these distinctly marked specimens 

 there is a general tendency to clear, smooth colouring, often 

 beautifully shaded, and to distinctness of the transverse 

 lines, of the black wedges before the subterminal line, and 

 especially of the deep black spaces before and between the 



