158 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Galway (Harker) ; two at Cappagh, and abundant at Minehead, 

 Co. Waterford. 



Caradrina taraxaci, Hb. — Very generally distributed, but not 

 apparently in great numbers as far as my experience serves. A 

 very dark blackish form occurs occasionally, which near Kenmare, 

 Sneem, Waterville, and other parts of the Kerry coast, and at 

 Dalyston, Co. Galway, appears to become a local variety. I 

 have also met with it at Eenvyle, on the Connemara coast ; and 

 in Tyrone. 



The var. sonlida, Haw., is occasionally met with. 



(To be continued.) 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



The late Mr. Machin's Sale.— My fi-iend Mr. T. W. Hall must 

 surely have baeu napping when he penned his notes on this sale for 

 the last number of the 'Entomologist.' He says, p. 130: — " Lot 7, 

 which fetched 32/6, as per catalogue, included a pale form of EucJdo'e 

 cardamines, and also a curious variety. The first was a faded male, 

 very old, the colour due only to fading, as the base of the wings 

 exhibited a smoky brown instead of the usual clear grey of fresh 

 specimens ; the curious variety was a very poor specimen, and appa- 

 rently the orange had been removed fi-om the right side, as a few 

 orange scales remained." As a matter of fact these descriptions, 

 except so far as the condition of the specimens is concerned, are abso- 

 lutely incorrect. The first specimen, a male, is one of those pale- 

 tipped specimens to be found in most collections, but differs from the 

 general run of them in having the nervures within the yellow tip of 

 the usual orange. The diiference in the colour of the tips is striking, 

 and could not possibly be caused by fading, any more than an Oxford 

 tie could become a Cambridge one by exposure in a shop-window. 

 From the catalogue, moreover, we know that it was taken by Mr. 

 Machin himself at Ilford, and his own notes describe it as " one pale 

 cardamines taken by myself in Cauliflower Lane, Ilford," which proves, 

 if proof were necessary, that it was pale when captured. But it is 

 with regard to the second specimen that Mr. Hall's criticism is so in- 

 explicable. He failed to see that the specimen is set under-side up, 

 so that what he calls the right side is really the left ; and has also for- 

 gotten that in cardamines the black tip to the wing varies in size and 

 shape according to the sex, so that even if the orange had "been 

 removed," the black tip left would have been that of the male, not, as 

 in this case, that of the female. The specimen is really one of those 

 very curious gynaudromorphic ones occasionally met with, of which 

 there are scarcely two alike. I append a short description of the 

 specimen as it really is : — Upper side : typical female except for a 

 slight dash of orange on the costal nervure near the tip of the right 

 fore wing ; the discoidal spots of equal size. Under side : right fore 

 wing (left as Mr. Hall would describe it) normal male ; left fore wing 

 (right teste Mr. Hall) normal female, except for slight orange markings 



