IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 103 



band. Specimens in my cabinet from Paisley, Armagh and Deal, exhibit 

 this form well. I would include all specimens of the pale var. with 

 a distinct central fascia (reddish or dark fuscous) under the varietal name. 



/3. var. pallida, mihi. An extreme form of var. cana, with the 

 hoary grey ground colour spread all over the wings. The median fascia 

 only present in its lower half, and then not red, but of a slightly 

 darker shade of the ground colour. This is the most common form in 

 all localities where I have collected. I have it from many English 

 localities, also from Sligo in Ireland. Sub- var. extrema. Anterior wings 

 entirely hoary-grey without a central fascia. I have one specimen of 

 this extreme form from Deal. 



7. var. suffusa, mihi. Of a dark greyish-black, with all the trans- 

 verse markings obsolete or faintly indicated, merging insensibly into 

 M. strigilis vars. cethiops and latruncula. I have never seen specimens 

 of this variety except from Armagh, where they were captured by the 

 Eev. W. F. Johnson, M.A. 



Miana, St., bicoloria, Vill. 



The type of this species is described in De Villers' ' Caroli 

 Linnssi Entomologia Fauna Suecieas/ p. 288, No. 393, as follows : 

 " Noctua (la ' bicolor ') spirilinguis, alis deflexis, antice fuscis, postice 

 griseis." " Parva. Caput et thorax grisea. Alae superiores anticee 

 fusca3, posticee grisese. Inferiores fuscas. Subtus omnes pallide 

 griseas. Litura albida in parte fusca versus apicem." Of the type of 

 this species Dr. Staudinger writes : " al. ant. iisque ad medium fuscis, 

 deinde albicantibus (griseis)." This is not an uncommon var. in Eng- 

 land and is closely allied to the form represented by the first figure in 

 Newman's ' British Moths,' p. 309, except that the fuscous colour 

 should extend from the centre to the base of the wing. There is every 

 variation in ground colour from almost unicolorous white to unicolorous 

 brown and red. Guenee in his ' Noctuelles,' vol. v., pp. 216, 217, 

 writes : " This species varies no less than strigilis, but the most ex- 

 treme varieties are easily separated by means of the straight line which 

 bounds the dark part of the wing inside the reniform stigma. The 

 type of the species is that in which the wing is half fuscous and half 

 whitish." This is to me a most interesting species and there is no 

 doubt that many of its phases of variation, as known to us, are almost 

 unknown by Continental authors, and very many of its varieties 

 appear to be unknown even to British collectors. Probably no Miana 

 is sent more frequently in error for other species and I have 

 been repeatedly asked to name different varieties. There are four 

 very distinct ground colours, white, fuscous-grey, pale reddish- 

 ochreous, and a dark reddish-brown, and of each of these there are 

 three very distinct forms : (1) an unicolorous form of this colour; 

 (2) a mottled form of the same colour (the whole of the wing being 

 mottled with a large number of whitish transverse lines) ; (3) a form 

 with the basal half dark (sometimes unicolorous, sometimes mottled) 

 and the outer half pale greyish or white. Specimens of the mottled 

 form are those which are the least generally distributed, and I know 

 of no good figures of any of them. The dark unicolorous forms, too, 

 are neither figured nor described, although the pale red form rufuncula 

 has been both figured and described frequently. Besides the darker 

 forms mentioned above, there is, on our chalk downs of Kent, a white 



