118 VARIETIES OP NOCTUJB 



litt.) ; whilst Mr. Beid, writes : " N. f estiva has been sent out as N. 

 conflua by many Aberdeen collectors for " exchange " purposes, and 

 the fact that f estiva never figured in the ' Exchange List ' speaks for 

 itself, besides, I have been told by a collector, that ' if we called them 

 /estiva, we should never get rid of them.' Professor Trail's list, how- 

 ever, has much to answer for in perpetuating the blunder. Although 

 some collectors have worked a great part of the northern counties of 

 Scotland, I do not think the high mountains have ever been worked 

 for conflua. I have no doubt, the narrow-winged, unicolorous form 

 occurs freely in such localities. Mr. Tait of Inverurie has a few 

 which he captured in Aberdeenshire. I have taken them myself on 

 some of our high moors, and I have seen others that have been captured 

 high on our hills. I cannot say whether the variety has been captured 

 in the mountains of Perthshire " (in Hit.). Mr. Maddison writes : 

 " My specimens of TV. conflua from Lapland, appear to differ slightly 

 from my Morayshire and other Scotch specimens, in their somewhat 

 paler colour and narrower fore wings, but I cannot say that the differ- 

 ence appears to be much marked " (in litt.) ; whilst Mr. Sydney Webb 

 says : " If we can claim conflua at all, it seems to me that it must be 

 through the Shetland specimens and not through the Aberdeenshire or 

 Perthshire ones. Stress is particularly laid, on the Continent, on the 

 narrow fore wing, and certainly the Shetland specimens possess this 

 in a marked degree " (in litt.). The true f estiva as well as conflua occurs 

 in the Shetland Isles. 



Noctua, Linn., festiva, Hb. 



Under this name I include all our British forms except the conflua 

 from the Shetland Isles. The variation in ground colour extends from a 

 pale whitish-grey to deep red, and in markings from exceedingly well- 

 developed black quadrate marks between the stigmata and beyond the 

 orbicular, as in figs. 2 and 3 of Newman's * British Moths,' p. 348, to 

 a total absence of any dark markings whatever. The conflua, as figured 

 in ' Newman's * British Moths,' p. 349, are only small specimens of 

 f estiva and not the true conflua of Treitschke. The species is poly- 

 morphic, and it is only possible in the most general way to classify the 

 forms we get. Some of the specimens from northern localities have a 

 strong tendency to develop a glaucous shade, whilst others from ex- 

 posed localities and moorland districts, have a tendency to be dwarfed 

 in size, although, in our southern woods, there are frequently very 

 small specimens captured. One rarely sees at large, such fine large 

 specimens as some of the North London collectors supply us with for 

 our cabinets, and one only sees occasionally from our southern woods 

 such deep red-brown specimens as are obtained near Perth. The 

 Aberdeen specimens sometimes tend to reddish-brown, but this is of 

 rare occurrence. Hiibner's type may be described as follows : " The 

 anterior wings slaty-grey at the base, the extreme outer margin pale 

 red to the subterminal line, the colour then becomes dark red from 

 this line to midway between the stigmata ; the transverse lines grey, 

 the reniform outlined in grey, the orbicular pale pinkish. Hind wings 

 dull grey, fringe red, a dark shade on hind margin, transverse line 

 and dark lunule " ('Sammlung europ. Schmet.,' fig. 114). This type 

 has no trace of black markings on the anterior wings. In general 

 variation, we are first struck with the range of colour, which is very 

 great, although not so extensive as in some other species in the same 



