185 1] The Galway Burnet Moth. 21 



have preferred the loss of this discovery to that of another 

 which almost fell to his lot the same summer in the domain 

 of the entomologist. 



Until this year, he had made no attempt to go beyond 

 butterflies in the lepidoptera ; but now, fortified with most 

 of the parts of Westwood, he threw himself eagerly into 

 his first season of moth-collecting, sugaring as well as 

 hunting with the net, and, it may be added, enlisting in 

 both departments the willing assistance of his sister, whom 

 he would never permit to learn English names for any of 

 the insects collected. 



In the first week of June he took several specimens of a 

 Burnet moth whose markings puzzled him, and which he 

 could not find correctly described in his books. On the 

 wing it most resembled faded specimens of the well-known 

 Six-Spotted Burnet (Zygaena filipendulae), but when 

 captured was seen to differ pointedly from that insect, not 

 only in the semi-transparency of the wings, but likewise 

 in the disposition of its colouring : the green and scarlet 

 seemed to run into each other without a definite boundary, 

 instead of being clearly distinguishable as ground colour 

 and spots, as they are in Z. filipendulae. It was curious, 

 too, that this moth should be found quite plentiful at Castle 

 Taylor in some localities actually swarming on the stony 

 pastures a full fortnight earlier than the usual date of the 

 Six-Spotted Burnet's emergence from the pupa condi- 

 tion ; and the pupa-cases of Zygaena filipendulae, which 

 were seen in scores on the grass-stems, were all appa- 

 rently still unopened. No other species of Zygaena on 

 the British list, however, answered to the description any 

 better ; and unluckily, an entomological friend whom 

 he consulted assured him that his moth was merely a 

 suffused variety of Z. filipendulae ; an answer with which, 

 as his Westwood could not help him, he rested satisfied. 

 A beginner could hardly have done otherwise ; but if at the 

 time he had had access to a good work on European Lepi- 

 doptera, he could quickly have identified his insect with 

 Zygaena minos or, as it is now termed, Z. pilosellae var. 

 nubigena, a moth up to that time known only as an inha- 

 bitant of France, Switzerland, and Germany, but now 



