VARIETIES OF NOCTUJB 



front, and running to the costa ; this is succeeded by a small dark 

 patch, and this by the second stigma, which is rather broad and ear- 

 shaped, dusky within, and edged, as well as the other, with brown ; 

 from the outer edge of the second stigma extend three dusky rays, 

 separated by the whitish space occupied by the veins of the wing : 

 these rays are cut in the middle by a very much curved series of dusky 

 slender arches, which is followed by a row of triangular dark-coloured 

 patches parallel to the apical margin, which is further marked with 

 minute dusky arched dots ; the abdomen and hind wings are of an 

 uniform silky, huffish-grey, with the cilia nearly white " (Humphrey 

 and Westwood's ' British Moths,' p. 118). Our Eannoch specimens 

 are, in their paler forms, reddish-grey with an occasional tendency 

 towards the typical form, but I have never seen anything from 

 Scotland in any way referable to the type. This is perhaps the 

 nearest form. Hering (vide under var. carnica) speaks of a specimen 

 " with dark yellowish-brown patches." Guenee, however, described 

 a Scotch specimen which he erroneonsly referred to carnica, Hering, 

 as : " Of a clear ashy colour ; the median space darker in all its upper 

 part ; the stigmata small, especially the orbicular ; the reniform less 

 rounded, and not shaded so distinctly with reddish ; the subterminal 

 line very sharp, and black cuneiform spots formed between each 

 nervure " (< Noctuelles,' vol. v., p. 343). Such pale forms are, how- 

 ever, rare in Scotland. 



e. var. carnica, Hering. The original notice of Bering's carnica 

 is as follows : " A. carnica (by others called glacialis or egregia). One 

 of our most active collectors, Mr. Kahr, discovered in 1845 a number of 

 larvae on the Sanalp near Klagenf urt, which he incidentally saw crawling 

 over the snow. Unfortunately he has not communicated anything as 

 to the habits or other peculiarities of the larvaa. He sent a number of 

 the bred moths though to the Vienna Naturalien Cabinet, and another 

 lot to Berlin. That it is a new species is generally admitted by all 

 lepidopterists. I should, however, not choose the two names egregia, 

 Lederer and glacialis, Kahr, because they have already been given to 

 other moths. I propose therefore the name of carnica, after the locality 

 of this insect. The males and females do not differ materially in colour. 

 The former resemble the colouring of agathina, and in the markings, 

 ol)elisca. With both sexes it is a shading of copper-reddish ; with the 

 female sometimes mixed with light grey. One of my specimens shows, 

 however, no grey at all, but has patches of a dark yellowish-brown 

 colour. The legs are reddish-yellow, thorax, copper colour, in the female 

 partly mixed with grey ; body of male, especially towards the end, red- 

 dish. The antennae of the latter up to the tip, fairly strongly pectinated, 

 in the female plain. The upper margin of primaries is, up to the first 

 strong vein, of the same colour as thorax. Then two arched, notched 

 white lines, divide the wings into three areas, of which the middle 

 one with the stigmata is the largest and darkest, and runs smaller and 

 paler towards the inner margin. The orbicular is mostly covered with 

 white, the reniform red and fringed with white. The orbicular only dis- 

 tinct in few specimens. The 3rd area toward the fringes is much paler, 

 and contains a red-brown notched line, and, with some well marked 

 specimens, are observable small wedge-formed markings, the points of 

 which turn outward. Alongside the last line and fringes are to be 

 seen a row of dark dots. Hind wings are reddish-grey with darker 

 shade towards the lighter fringes " ('Stett. ent. Zeit.,' 1846, p. 236). 



