IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 117 



specimens, mentioned above, describes them, and I have very little 

 doubt they belong to this variety. I have seen a specimen of Mr. 

 Eobson's belonging to this variety, but the subterminal line is more 

 ochreous than white. I would include all black specimens with 

 strongly-marked reniform and subterminal line under this varietal 

 name. 



e. var. andalusica, Stdgr. Dr. Staudinger has a variety in his 

 ' Catalog ' under this name, which he describes as : " dilutior, inagis 

 unicolor." I thought that probably this variety might refer to my 

 var. ochraced, as this short description is so vague that it is impossible 

 to tell from it to what form Dr. Staudinger refers. Mr. Dobree, 

 however, in answer to a query, writes : " Andalusica is certainly not 

 the Amur type. It is merely the pale form so constantly occurring in 

 all continental, as opposed to British, lepidoptera, the ground colour of 

 the Amur type (vide above) is ochreous, but that of andalusica is grey " 

 (in Hit.). 



Mamestra, Och., persicarice, L. 



This species, as far as my knowledge extends, appears to be very 

 constant in Britain. I find a slight variation in the amount of ochreous 

 colour in the white discoidal, some variation in the extent to which the 

 orbicular is obsolete, and rather more in the character of the sub- 

 terminal line. I have some in which this latter is obsolete, others in 

 which it is represented by a more or less complete series of ochreous 

 dots, and but few in which it is quite complete. On the Continent, 

 however, it appears to be more variable, at any rate, so far as the dis- 

 coidal is concerned ; in some specimens it is ochreous, and in others 

 only of the ground colour. The former is, according to Guenee, the 

 accipitrina of Esper, the latter the unicolor of Staudinger, although, as 

 mentioned below, Dr. Staudinger considers accipitrina a distinct species. 

 The type of this species is described by Linnaeus, * Fauna Suecicae,' pp. 

 319, 320, No. 1208, as: " Noctua spirilinguis cristata, alis f usco-nebu- 

 losis: macula reniformi albo pupilla lunari flavescente." "Alse 

 superiores fusco nigricantes, venis nebulosee, margine postico quasi 

 dentato atomis albis. Inferiores antice pallidae, postice fuscescentes 

 margine albido. Subtus omnes glaucescentes : fascia lata, obsoleta et 

 puncto nigro. Anus ferrugineus " ; and in the ' Systema Naturae,' p. 

 847, we read : " Alarum superiorum margo posticus albo-dentatus." 

 Our specimens have an ochreous subterminal line, not " white." 



a. var. accipitrina, Esp. (?) Of this variety there are specimens 

 in the Doubleday collection (continental), with " the reniform ochreous, 

 and the whole insect much less strongly marked." Guenee says of 

 it : " Accipitrina, Esp., ' Die Schmet. in Abbildungen,'&c., pi. 129, fig. 

 4, appears, after what he himself states in his text, to be a purely acci- 

 dental and very singular variety of persicarice." Dr. Staudinger, in his 

 ' Catalog ' says : " Accipitrina of Esper is another species, the var. 

 accipitrina of collections is not Esper's accipitrina" He then suggests 

 for the accipitrina of continental cabinets the varietal name of 

 unicolor. 



j3. var. unicolor, Stdgr. Of this variety, Staudinger says in his 

 ' Catalog ' : " Al. ant. absque macula alba." Mr. Dobree writes : 

 " I have specimens of this variety in my collection. It seems to be a 

 common continental variety " (in Hit.). 



