14 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
they are the veriest outlines, in some cases consisting of less than 
half a dozen words, but they usually enumerate the differences 
of the form described from some other previously known form, 
and I find that by looking up the descriptions of these latter and 
studying them carefully one can understand Desvignes’ meaning. 
The investigation has, however, its difficulties. Desvignes 
was only acquainted with a comparatively few forms, or, as he 
considered several of them, species, and as since his day many 
other forms somewhat similar to those he described have been 
named—one suspects without understanding what his forms 
actually were—and others known to him are no longer found, it 
is sometimes difficult to understand him. Unfortunately his 
very large collection of the Peroneas has disappeared, and the 
whereabouts of the specimens, if they exist, is not known.* 
I have devoted a good deal of time to studying his meaning, 
and I think, thanks largely to the Webb specimens, I have 
succeeded in elucidating it. The forms which have hitherto 
appeared to me not understandable are the following: (1) uni- 
colorana, (2) xanthovittana, (3) curtisana, (4) tolana, (5) provit- 
tana. 
To take these in the order as given : 
(1) Ab. untcolorana. Desvignes writes of this: ‘‘ Its colour 
being uniform dark Green.” It seems evident that for the 
word ‘‘ green’ should be substituted the word ‘ brown,” because 
apart from the question that a green form of cristana is not only 
not known and is quite outside the colour variation of even this 
protean species, Desvignes goes on to write of the next aberra- 
tion, alboflammana : ‘‘ Similar to the preceding, with a white dash 
on the inner margin.” Now alboflammana is one of Curtis’s 
names, and his description of it is: ‘Superior wings livid 
BROWN, with a small button on the disc.” This of course 
settles definitely the doubtful point. 
(2) Xanthovittana. Desvignes says of this: ‘‘ Similar (to 
alboflammana), with a yellow or fulvous dash; palpi, head and 
thorax of the same colour.” To this description one must of 
course add that of Curtis’s of alboflammana given above, and we 
then find that xanthovittana is a form with livid brown wings, a 
small button on the disc, and a yellow or fulvous vitta, palpi, 
head and thorax. This description exactly agrees with Clark’s 
ab. proxanthovittana, which must fall before Desvignes’ name. 
Clark, of course, was under the impression that xunthovittana 
had a large button. 
* Since writing the above I findin E.M.M., vol. v, p. 26 (1868), it is stated that 
‘* Desvignes’s Collection of British insects will shortly be sold at Stevens’s,’’ and 
in the same volume, p. 180, that ~S. Stevens exhibited at a meeting of the Ento- 
mological Society of London a Geometer from Desvignes’s cabinet.’ It would appear 
most probable that his cristana were included in this sale, that they were then 
distributed amongst the buyers of that species, and that a number of them would 
find their way eventually into the Webb series. 
