IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS. 85 



unfortunately all but ten were ichneumoned. The larvaa feed in 

 preference on Epilobium and Corydalis gigantea, and remain by day hidden 

 in the earth. I have two of these larvae preserved, of which I hope to 

 send you one. It is an insect which occurs generally here and there 

 throughout Amoorland, and I was fairly successful in my captures of 

 it.' 



" A point of great interest in this communication is the establish- 

 ment of a great difference between the male and female. The figures 

 in Newman and Herrich-Schaffer are all of the former ; but the latter, 

 the female, seems to have been unknown to any of them. The follow- 

 ing is a description of both sexes from the specimens I possess : 

 ' Male Fore wings warm bistre-brown, with faintly darker transverse 

 lines, the ground colour shading off on the inner margin to a broad 

 band of light ochre ; stigmata dirty white. Hind wings and body, of 

 a very pale shade of the fore wings. Female Fore wings quite 

 uniform dark ashy-grey, with faintly darker transverse lines, similar 

 to the male ; stigmata dirty white. Hind wings and body, of a very 

 light shade of the upper wings.' It will thus be readily seen that the 

 two sexes might easily be mistaken for quite different species. 



" I may further add to the general description that in both sexes 

 the wings are remarkably narrow, and the stigmata exceptionally wide 

 apart ; in fact Guenee is quite correct in his remark that the insect 

 has a look quite ' sui generis.' Mr. G. Norman's Canadian specimens, 

 which are all males, quite agree with mine of that sex from Amurland, 

 in size and colouring." 



The type is a dark blackish form, whilst Tauscher's var. /? has 

 the outer (not inner, as appears from the above to be characteristic of 

 the male) margin yellow. Guenee's fennica has the inner margin 

 yellow-ochreous (the male ?), whilst Guenee's var. A = Tauscher's type, 

 as it has " the superior wings more slaty, more unicolorous (the 

 female ?), with the posterior lines less distinct, the extra basal line 

 more oblique. Stigmata narrower " (' Noctuelles,' vol. v., p. 270). 



a. var. tauscheri, H.-S. Herrich-Schaffer describes a variety of 

 fennica under the name of tauscheri. His description is : " Violacea- 

 f usca versus marginem interiorem plus minus ferruginea, stigmatibus 

 ambobus flavido circumscriptis " (< Systematische Bearbeitung ' &c.). 

 This is almost Guenee's fennica, except that Guenee writes of the 

 latter " inner margin broadly yellow-ochreous " not " more or less 

 ferruginous." This latter form is also the fennica of Godart and 

 Duponchel, who figure a form (' Histoire naturelle ' &c., plate 90, fig. 

 10, and p. 533) with the inner margin broadly ochreous. From the 

 quotation recorded by Mr. Dobree (vide p. 84) this may only prove to 

 be the male. The statement is : " The specimens with the broad 

 yellow-ochreish shading on the inner margin of the upper wing are 

 males, the females never have it, at least not in Siberia." 



Agrotis, Och., hyperborea, Zett. 



It appears to me that the type of this species is Zetterstedt's 

 alpicola, but, as the name hyperborea is in such general use, I have re- 

 tained it as the type, and treated alpicola as the varietal form. Hyper- 

 borea is thus described : " Hadena hyperborea : alis anticis cinereis, 

 parce fuscomaculatis nigroque subirroratis, strigis duabus repandis 

 obscuris externe cano-marginatis, intra quas inaculis ordinariis ferru- 

 gineo-tinotis positis ; posticis cinereo-griseis. <? ? . (Long. al. exp. 



