128 VARIETIES OF ttOCTUJE 



of brown to a ferruginous red, but in the character and quantity of the 

 pale markings. The type has the branched central line and reni- 

 form glaucous ; most British specimens have them white ; whilst 

 others have only the forked end of the central line and reniform white, 

 the base of the line and branches being almost of the ground colour, 

 whilst, on the other hand, I have specimens in which the white median 

 nervure develops into a broad band, with many branches, running 

 longitudinally through the centre of the wing from the base to beyond 

 the reniform. As in all this family, there is great variation in the size 

 and shape of the stigmata, and the females are, as a rule, much larger, 

 and less liable to variation than the males. Mr. Porritt writes me that 

 " red and grey forms in both sexes occur in the Huddersfield 

 district." There are numbers of intermediate forms, but the following 

 are some of the most striking forms that have been described : 

 1. Grey, with branched central line and stigmata glaucous = 



graminis, L. 

 2. Grey, with white three-branched central line, stigmata yellowish 



= gramineus, Haw. 

 3. Red-brown, with ochreous ramose central line, ochreous stigmata 



= tricuspis, Esp., $ . 

 4. Red-brown, with white ramose central line, whitish stigmata = 



var. rufa (= tricuspis, Hb.). 

 5. G-rey, with red costa, with ochreous ramose central line, ochreous 



stigmata = var. rufo-costa (== graminis , Hb.). 

 6. Dull yellowish brown, with ochreous ramose central line, ochreous 



stigmata = Jtiburnicus, Curt. 

 7. Pale ochreous yellow, with dark nervures, white orbicular and 



reniform with a bifid line joining base of reniform = var. ochrea 



(= tricuspis, Esp. $ ). 



The first five make the only reasonable method of arrangement 

 of the varieties which can be readily adopted, and include most of the 

 general forms. It will be seen from Herr Sven's paper, which 

 follows, that the description of his var. brunnea would include not only 

 Nos. 3, 4, and 5, but also his own albipuncta and Boisduval's albineura ; 

 megala apparently belongs to the same group as 6 and 7, but I know 

 nothing of it beyond the information kindly given by Mr. Dobree. 

 From Curtis's figure, pi. 451, it can be seen that No. 6 is only an ex- 

 treme modification of No. 3, and I have never seen an extreme form like 

 No. 7, although Mr. Dobree has it from Southern Germany. Two other 

 marked forms occur ; one (var. obsoleta), of an unicolorous dull grey- 

 brown, with all the ordinary pale transverse lines of the same colour 

 as the rest of the wings, but slightly paler, the whitish reniform and 

 a white blotch at its base alone being distinct of all the original mark- 

 ings ; another form (var. pallida), has the central ramose line developed 

 into a large white blotch. In Humphrey and Westwood's ( British 

 Moths,' p. 113, we find : " Varieties occur with the fore wings of an 

 uniform colour, except the pale yellow marks and stigmata ; and others 

 have the latter markings edged with black on a plain ground." Thanks 

 to Mr. Dobree, I am able to append a translation of the following ex- 

 tract, written by Herr Sven, and published in the Scandinavian < En- 

 tomologisk Tidskrift,' 1884, pp. 160-1: "As supplement of the 

 foregoing (an article ' On the abundance of and damage done by 



