7(3 VARIETIES OF 



There is no claviform and frequently no orbicular. The hind wings 

 vary very much in shade in both sexes, from a pure white to grey, 

 and from total absence of markings to a distinct lunule, a transverse 

 shade just within the lunule, and another parallel to the hind margin. 



a. var. pallida, mihi. The anterior wings of the same ashy almost 

 lilac-grey colour as the type; the basal and elbowed lines black, but 

 rather less strongly marked than in the type ; the orbicular absent 

 or very small, reniform distinct ; the median shade almost entirely 

 obsolete ; the subterminal shade pale, lined on either side with a 

 slightly darker shade. Hind wings slightly paler than in the type. 

 I have received all my specimens of this pale form from the Sussex 

 collectors. They are all males ; I have not seen a female of this 

 variety. A sub-variety of var. pallida occurs, in which the broad, 

 strongly-marked median shade of the type is replaced by a clear, but 

 much narrower, red median shade, forming a central band between 

 the stigmata. It is thus intermediate between the type and var. 

 pallida. This sub- var. I would call virgata. This sub- variety also has 

 a dark reddish shade bordering the inner side of the subterminal line, 

 and tending to develop into cuneiform spots. 



p. var. obscura, Hb. This is a dark variety of the species, generally, 

 but not always, confined to the female, there being also a form of 

 that sex with the median band exactly similar to the typical 

 males. Hiibner's $ , called cinerea (fig. 156), is not at all like his type 

 of the $ (fig. 155), but almost identical with his obscura (fig. 157), 

 except that the latter is a little darker. Hiibner's obscura may be 

 described as : u Anterior wings, deep, unicolorous, dull-brown, with 

 two darker transverse basal lines ; faintest trace of reniform ; elbowed 

 line black and wavy, subterminal line dark ; a dark median shade 

 between stigmata ; the extreme outer margin a very little paler. The 

 hind wings greyish-brown with a dark shade on the outer margin " 

 (' Sammlung europaischer Schmet.,' fig. 157). This brown form with 

 black transverse lines, median shade, and stigmata, is not at all an 

 uncommon form in the female in England, the central banded type 

 being the rarer form. In the male, however, it is much rarer. I have 

 a male from Sussex nearly allied to Hiibner's figure, but my almost 

 unicolorous females are darker and much blacker. However dark 

 these latter may become, the transverse lines and reniform stand out 

 in still more intense black, whilst the normal red (in British specimens) 

 of the median shade makes itself noticeable in the central area of the 

 anterior wings. 



Agrotis, Och., candelarum, Stdgr. 



This species was named candelarum by Staudinger (' Catalog,' p. 82), 

 taking as his type the candelisequa of Hiibner (397), but sinking the 

 latter name on the ground of there being another species of the name 

 in Agrotis. We rarely (if ever) get anything so pale as the type in 

 Britain, and our form (ashvoorthii) is often treated as a species distinct 

 from candelarum. Of this Mr. Willoughby Gardner wrote : " The 

 species of Agrotis which it (ashworthii) most resembles is the Continental 

 A. candelarum, iStdgr. This somewhat rare insect has a range across 

 central Europe, from the Ural Mountains, through Poland, Germany 

 and Switzerland, as far as the western provicces of France. The 

 imago is not unlike that of A. ashworthii, but the fore wings are of a 



