IK THE BRITISH 1S1ANDS. 86 



concealed among merchandise, but its fine condition forbids the idea 

 that it can have flown any great distance. It is equally possible that 

 it may have reared on the spot, the produce of an accidentally intro- 

 duced specimen. It would be very curious if this North American 

 species should succeed in establishing itself with us. The ground 

 colour of the fore wings of this specimen is pale grey, with a very 

 faint yellowish gloss, and is clouded with dark grey along the costa, 

 which also is pretty regularly spotted with blackish. Both transverse 

 lines are indistinct, blackish edged with pale, the first much inter- 

 rupted and angulated, the second indented into crescents. The orbicular 

 stigma is large, roundish, and whitish, the renal also large, dark grey, 

 with a perpendicular pale shade down its middle, the claviform very 

 broad, almost lunate, grey, all three edged with black. From the 

 whitish orbicular stigma, a pale oblique band, to near the anal angle, 

 meets another broad, pale band from the apex of the wing. Hind 

 margin much clouded with dark grey, subteruiinal whitish, interrupted, 

 indented, and with a conspicuous W in the middle. At the base of 

 the wing are several curved blackish lines between the nervures, 

 cilia pale grey, spotted with darker. Hind wings whitish to beyond 

 the middle, with a broad, ill-defined, dark grey band along the 

 margin ; cilia white, with a line of pale grey dots or flecks. Head, 

 antennae, thorax and abdomen, grey-brown. It looks something like 

 a small pale dentina, with which species Major Partridge tells me that 

 he at first placed it but, from the distinct, central, pale, oblique band, 

 it bears also some resemblance to contigua " (' Entomologist's Monthly 

 Magazine,' vol. xxv., pp. 228-229). The pale yellow gloss I find to 

 be very characteristic in American specimens of this form. Prof. 

 Smith noted one or two inaccuracies in Mr. Barrett's communication 

 and at once wrote : " In the January No. of the ' Ent. Mo. Mag.' 

 appeared an article on Hddena albifusa, Grote, in Britain, which 

 requires some additional information, and perhaps correction. The 

 record of the capture of a foreign insect should never be made with- 

 out the most careful investigation. In this case, the circumstances of 

 the capture of the insect are sufficiently certain, but with all due 

 respect to the eminent entomologists who made the conclusions, they 

 are not entirely warranted. In the first place, Mr. Grote never 

 described any Hadena albifusa, though Mr. Walker did in the * Cat. 

 Brit. Mus. Noct.,' p. 753. This would have been unimportant, but in 

 1 Bull. Buff. Soc. Nat. Sci.,' i, 104, Mr. Grote referred this species of 

 Mr. Walker's to Mamestra trifolii = clienopodii, a species common all 

 over Europe, and, I believe, in England as well. In America, the 

 species is, as a rule, very uniform in colour, rarely becoming as 

 brightly marked as in the specimen described by Mr. Barrett. It is 

 otherwise rather variable, but within the same limits shown by the 

 series of European specimens seen by me. Mr. Kirby is probably 

 correct in the identification of the form as albifusa, but as albifusa is 

 but a form of a common European species, and a form not geographi- 

 cal, the specimen collected by Major Partridge had its origin either 

 on the Continent, or what is more probable, it is a somewhat aberrant 

 form, such as sometimes occurs everywhere, especially in species that 

 are known to vary " (' Ent. Mo. Mag.,' vol. xxv., p. 228). I quite 

 agree with Professor Smith as to the probability of its origin, as an 



