IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 29 



II. Sub-class : GENUINE, Gn. 

 1. Family : Leucanidce, Gn. 



The Leucanidae are, as a family, remarkable for their pale colour, 

 nearly all of them being of some shade of yellowish or whitish 

 ochreous in their palest forms. Even those which we are accustomed 

 to consider as having the typical colour of some shade of red are found 

 to be grey or ochreous in their paler forms, when long series from 

 far-distant localities are obtained for comparison. In almost all the 

 species of this group the variation in ground colour appears to go 

 through a regular gradation from pale whitish ochreous to yellowish 

 ochreous and reddish ochreous, generally culminating in a deep red. 

 Not only are many of our species subject to these variations in ground 

 colour, but nearly all the family are frequently in all these various 

 forms more or less suffused with black scales. It is therefore in one 

 of these two directions, or in both combined, that the variations of 

 the Leucanidae generally run. A less important type of variation is in 

 the number of dots which form the transverse rows, found in many 

 species, parallel to the hind margins of both the anterior and posterior 

 wings. Frequently some specimens of a species have complete rows 

 of these dots, while in other specimens of the same species they are 

 entirely absent, others having a greater or less proportion of the total 

 number suppressed. In most instances, however, two at least are 

 developed on the anterior wings, one directly above, the other below, 

 the median nervure. 



Synia, Dup , musculosa, Hb. 



It may be advisable to point out that Newman's figure, ' British 

 Moths,' p. 273, is nothing like Hiibner's type, and that his (Newman's) 

 description is almost convincing that the specimen he described most 

 probably did not belong to this species. Hiibner's fig. 363 is of a 

 bright sulphur-yellow ground colour, with grey nervures, the central 

 area of the wing much suffused with dark grey scales ; the orbicular 

 and reniform, of a very pale sulphur, stand out distinctly in the darker 

 central area ; the costa has a broad pale sulphur streak, the inner 

 margin also clear ; a pale sulphur wedge-shaped mark extends longi- 

 tudinally from the outer edge of the reniform to the hind margin, at 

 the point and where it meets the hind margin is a small grey blotch. 

 Posterior wings pale sulphur, without any markings. 



a. var. myodea, Rbr. Mr. Dobree informs me that the data for 

 considering this a variety of musculosa rests upon a single imperfect 

 specimen captured in Andalusia. Dr. Staudinger quotes it with a 

 mark of doubt. 



Leucania, Och., vitellina, Hb. 



Hiibner's type of this species (fig. 379) is a small, very strongly 

 marked male, of a bright yellow ground colour, marbled with reddish, 

 with transverse lines and stigmata red ; his fig. 589 being a female, 

 larger, dull unicolorous orange, with the transverse markings and stig- 

 mata indistinct. The specimens I have are all females, as large as 

 Hiibner's fig. 589, but intermediate in depth of markings and colour 

 between his figs. 379 and 589, Guenee, in his ' Noctuelles/ p. 73, 



