IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 75 



Xylophasia, St., sublustris, Esp. 



This species has been much mixed up with lithoxylea, many of our 

 early authors treating them as the same species. Hiibner figures (240) 

 a red variety of sublustris, which he calls lithoxylea ; and Haworth, in 

 his ' Lepidoptera Britannica,' p. 169, No. 25, writes with reference to 

 this figure, comparing it with lithoxylea : " at magis ferruginea ; " but 

 as he does not attempt to separate it from lithoxylea, British sublustris 

 may not have been known to him. Guenee, in his ' Noctuelles,' vol. 

 v., p. 139, states that " Treitschke has confounded the two species, 

 and has cited their synonymy very indistinctly." On p. 140, Guenee 

 also writes : " Is this a separate species, or only a variety of 

 lithoxylea? .... It is constant in markings and character." He then 

 writes : " Its colour is always more red, and the discoidal spots much 

 better marked ; the inferior wings have a very distinct brown discoidal 

 line between the lunule and the hind margin." These characters are 

 distinct, and I think the difference in the hind wings of lithoxylea and 

 sublustris well worthy of notice. This interesting species is very 

 variable on the coast of Kent, and specimens exhibit much difference 

 both in the ground colour and the depth of the markings. Most of 

 the specimens have the anterior wings of a pale ochreous-grey ground 

 colour ; others are decidedly yellowish ochreous, and these lead up to a 

 very distinct form with the ground colour decidedly tinged with red. 

 With respect to the markings, there is also a very great difference. 

 Some specimens have the characteristic markings in the central part 

 of the wing and on the outer margin very faint, and merging into the 

 ground colour ; others have them distinctly marked in dark greyish 

 brown ; others have them marked in deep brown ; while the form 

 mentioned above, with the red ground colour, has them in a clear 

 reddish brown or rust-red, shaded off into the paler ground colour. 

 The specimens also vary with regard to the transverse row of spots 

 parallel to the hind margin ; some specimens have these spots absent, 

 some well developed, and some have them joined by curved arches, 

 making a wavy line exactly of the same character and shape as the 

 second transverse line in the allied species polyodon, L. (monoglypha, 

 Hufn.). But the most remarkable specimen I have is one with the whitish 

 ground colour of lithoxylea, with all the markings of sublustris most 

 clearly developed, even to the wavy line mentioned above. There is 

 a great amount of difference also in the quantity of dark scales with 

 which the anterior wings are sprinkled. This makes some specimens 

 look quite melanic compared with others. But dark as some of our 

 specimens are, we do not appear to obtain (after making all due 

 allowance for the artistic demerit) any specimens so dark as Esper's 

 type. Esper's fig. 1 (' Die SchmetterKnge,' &c., pi. cxxxiii) is the 

 type, and, although bad enough, is recognisable at once as an 

 exceedingly suffused form of this species. I have made the following 

 description of his figure : " Probably a female (Esper calls it a male). 

 Anterior wings dark ochreous, entirely suffused for two-thirds of the 

 wing from the base with dark fuscous, except along the inner margin, 

 where the ground colour is more noticeable ; the outer one-third of 

 the wing, from the apex to the inner margin, paler ; this paler area 

 with a double transverse row of dots parallel to the hind margin, and 



