122 VARIETIES OP NOCTU2E 



cumbentibus dentatis griseo fuscoque variegatis, maculis ordinariis 

 albidis." This short Latin diagnosis he follows up with a much fuller 

 description in German, as follows : " The antenna? of the males are 

 pectinated. The toothed fore wings are whitish grey, with darker 

 shades. In the middle of the wing are the orbicular and reniform 

 stigmata, both of a whitish colour. Beneath the orbicular stigma is a 

 black mark, like a Greek v. Near the hind margin runs a whitish 

 transverse line, with a row of black triangular spots, pointing to the 

 base of the wing. The hind margin is black and white-spotted. The 

 hind wings are grey. Under side of fore and hind wings with a dark 

 spot and a transverse line." This species is very rare in Britain, 

 although most cabinets contain specimens, which their possessors 

 believe are British. On the Continent, however, the species is in 

 many places common. Hiibner, under the name of leucophcea, figures 

 (fig. 80) a specimen of a pale grey ground colour, with a much darker 

 central band, having a purplish tinge. The darker markings, however, 

 are much as in the figure in Newman's * British Moths.' p. 295, but 

 there are only two of the black wedge-shaped spots parallel to the 

 hind margin. The specimen is a large female. Geyer, in his Sup- 

 plement to Hiibner's ' Sammlung europaischer Schmetterlinge ' &c., 

 figures (817) another female, of bad shape, but purplish in colour. 

 Kegarding these purplish specimens, Mr. Dobree, writes: "From 

 Asia Minor I have a pair, of which the female is a splendidly richly- 

 marked example of the purplish-tinged form ; the male is a lighter 

 pale grey." Fabricius describes this species under the name offulmi- 

 nea, his description of the species agreeing almost precisely with that 

 of Yieweg. It is as follows : " Bombyx alis incumbentibus dentatis 

 griseo fuscoque variegatis, thorace antice albo ; striga nigra " (' Ento- 

 mologia Systematical &c., p. 484, No. 241). Newman, in his ' British 

 Moths,' p. 295, says, " tinged with ochreous," which has been the 

 case with several specimens I have seen. These " ochreous-tinged " 

 specimens would appear to be Hiibner's vestigialis (described below), 

 whilst a peculiar slaty form, with dark red central band, is figured by 

 the same author under the name of ravida. It is also the ochreous 

 form which is the leucophcea of ' Guenee's ' Noctuelles,' vol. v., p. 177, 

 where he writes : " Superior wings of a greyish white, tinged in 

 places with yellowish, and shaded with brownish black," &c., and Mr. 

 Dobree writes me that the " ochreous-tinged form is apparently the 

 prevailing one on the Continent, for, of the many I have received, all 

 are of this form " (in litt.). There is also a great deal of sexual differ- 

 ence, the males being not more than two-thirds the size of the females. 

 Taking the white and fuscous form as the type, there seem to be the 

 following varieties noted by other authors : 

 1. Speckled with ochreous = vestigialis, Esp. 

 2. With the central area red = ravida, Esp. 

 8. Smaller than type = bombycina, Ev. 



a. var. vestigialis, Esp. Esper (' Die Schmet. in Abbil- 

 dungen,' &c., vol. iii., pi. liii., (fig. 5) figures a form of leucophcea 

 under this name, of which I made the following description: 

 " Male. Pectinated antenna? ; ground colour greyish brown, 

 with yellowish nervures ; a white patch at base of wing directly 

 under costa, followed by a double whitish basal line, edged 



