340 LEPIDOPTERA. 



imitation is that to a North American species — A. suhgotldca; 

 of this a fine example is before me. Its general colour is 

 rather dark iimbreous, stigmata paler but not strikingly so, 

 the orbicular small and oblique, the subcostal stripe very 

 pale brown, and from it, just before the orbicular stigma, a 

 similar pale brown stripe oUiqiuiy down the wing straight 

 toward the anal angle. This oblique stripe appears, com- 

 pletely or partially, in occasional specimens of other colour- 

 ing and markings, which do not at all resemble A. suhjothica, 

 and it is perhaps most frequent in an east-coast form having 

 whitish-brown or very pale wainscot-brown ground colour, 

 the fore wings of which are also rather narrow. For some of 

 the most beautiful forms that I have seen of this sj^ecies I 

 am indebted to the kindness of Mr. A. Home, who has 

 obtained them on the north-east coast of Scotland. The 

 usual dark markings in these are of a rich velvety black, 

 purple-black, and purple-brown, the subcostal stripe clear 

 white, and in some, the median nervure, the first line and 

 the two stigmata outlined with the same ; others have the 

 subcostal stripe yellow. Mr, Kenneth Morton has found a 

 curious form on one of the high hills in Dumfriesshire. It 

 resembles A. ohdisca in some degree, but is more dull in 

 colour and devoid of the pale subcostal stripe ; transverse 

 lines distinct, black ; stigmata of the ground colour but out- 

 lined with black ; otherwise unicolorous. Hind wings dull 

 pale grey. One taken in Norfolk by the sons of Mr. F. J. 

 Hanbury is of a remarkably delicate light brown ; another 

 found on the Antrim coast by the liev. W. F. Johnson is 

 equally pale but has the whitish stigmata almost squared, 

 and the intermediate spot strikingly black. 



Many of the forms have been described as distinct species. 

 Haworth's ■mlligcra — " fore wings reddish-grey with the three 

 stigmata, the lines, and the hind marginal wedges fuscous ; " 

 alhilinia — " wings with three reddish stigmata, a white longi- 

 tudinal line, and black lines and wedges ; " and his linwlata — 

 " wings reddish with three greyish stigmata, lines and a hind 



