COSYMBIA PENDULARIA AB. DECORARIA, NEWM. 



53 



In the first place, the re-discovery of a dark form in the 

 south of England, and its differentiation from the similar Stafford- 

 shire form which is generally called ab. siibroseata, Woodforde, 

 has reopened the question whether we require two varietal names 

 for these or not. Then, as Mr. Joicey has just recently purchased 

 Newman's type out of the Sydney Webb Collection (Stevens' Sale 

 Catalogue, December 9th, 1919, lot ?), I have had my interest 

 reawakened in the details, have been able to put the historic 

 specimen side-by-side with beautiful Surrey examples bred by 

 Mr. E. T. Bowman, and am tberefore anxious to give to a wider 

 public what I have already, some months ago, communicated to 

 two or three correspondents in the nature of a " correction" — 

 if so it may be considered — of my earlier work in " Seitz." 



Newman in 1861 (' Zoologist,' xix, p. 7798) erected Ephijra 

 (?) decoraria as a distinct species — " a Geometer probably 

 hitherto uncharacterised," to quote exactly his heading. He 

 describes it as of " about the size of Ephyra porata. Fore wings 

 with the costal and hind margins bluish lead-colour ; disc of the 

 wing tinged with delicate red, inclining to rosy ; two very distinct 

 pale grey transverse waved lines. . . . Exactly inter- 

 mediate between the two lines is a conspicuous white spot 

 transversely elongate " (etc. ; the rest of the description is 

 immaterial for our purpose). The type was lent by Mr. Shrosbree, 

 who was said to have bred it in June, from a larva which he 

 found in May, " feeding on the bedeguar of a wild rose." A few 

 pages later {torn, cit., p. 7807), Miller suggests, tbough with a 

 query, that the specimen is an " Ephyra pendidaria, var." After 

 a further reference by Newman in vol. xx, of the same publica- 

 tion, p. 7874, the specimen apparently passes out of sight until 

 the year 1876, when Mr. Bond, having acquired it, gives a note 

 on its history accompanied by a good woodcut (' Entomologist,' 

 ix, p. 217). He says he "understood at the time" — (when 

 the specimen was first exhibited before the Entomological 

 Society) — " that the larva was never actually seen feeding on the 

 bedeguar," and surmises that it had fallen from a birch tree. 

 Neither he nor Barrett (who gives, in ' The Lepidoptera of the 

 British Islands,' vii, p. 325, pi. 328, fig. ^d, a brief notice 

 and a rather crude figure of tbe specimen) mentions Newman's 

 name, and as its author himself had neglected to afiix any type- 

 label, it is not altogether surprising that it has been long over- 

 looked. The locality, published as " near London," was, according 

 to the label on the type, Birch Wood. 



Newman's type, as description andfigures show, is the smooth, 

 uniformly darkened form which has recently been named ab. nigro- 

 roseata, H. W. Wood (* Entom.,' xlix, p. 80), and which, indeed, 

 is the only melanic form as yet known from the southern counties 

 (Surrey and Kent). It is rather small, which may be because it 

 was a precocious second-brood example, or because it had pupated 



