IN T1IE BKITISU ISLANDS. 51 



arcuatae, sed anterius albidae. Margo ciliaris niveus " (' Systeina 

 Naturaj,' xiith., p. 841). Humphrey and Westwood figure the form 

 with bright red hind wings as nupta (PI. lv., fig. 5), whilst a figure 

 with duller red hind wings is called elocata (fig. 6), but they state 

 that their figure is made from a Continental specimen of the real 

 elocata. There is no doubt, however, apart from this figure that the 

 so-called elocata taken in Britain were only forms of nupta with the 

 hind wings of a duller red colour, a not unfrequent variety in most 

 British localities, and representing the type according to Guenee. 



Treitschke writes of nupta : " As already remarked under 

 elocata, that, and the present species (nupta) were in former years 

 treated as the same species, with which the authors of the * Vienna 

 Verz.' etc. agreed. It is difficult to tell which of the older entomolo- 

 gists were of that opinion : but Borkhausen and Esper's good de- 

 scriptions may be considered the best guide. It has also been proved 

 by breeding, that Hiibner's concubina, tig. 329, is nothing more than a 

 var. of nupta. Nupta is smaller than elocata : the head, collar, and 

 the thinly tufted thorax are light grey, dusted with yellowish and 

 brown scales, the collar has several darker cross lines ; the body is 

 ash-grey, likewise the anal tuft of the male, which, however, has 

 white hairs on both sides and on the point. The chest and body 

 below are light whitish ; the fore wings have a light grey ground 

 colour with distinct but variable markings. The surface, with the 

 exception of a light band in the central area of the wing, is dusted 

 with brown, and minute yellowish dots, which are, however, more 

 separated than in elocata, and, therefore, do not give it so coarse an 

 appearance. The incomplete and complete transverse basal lines are 

 the same as in elocata, broad and whitish, bordered with yellowish- 

 brown. Then comes the already mentioned light band, in which a 

 special white dot indicates the orbicular. Then comes the reniform, 

 which is distinctly half-moon shaped and zigzag towards the outer 

 margin. It is of a brown colour mixed with yellowish. This (the 

 reniform) is joined as in fraxini towards the inside by a yellowish 

 fiame-shaped mark. The angulated line is very clear and passes in a 

 wide circuit round the reniform forming a kind of M, and then con- 

 tinues very irregularly dentate towards the inner margin ; this line 

 is yellowish but edged with brown. Lastly, the ground colour of the 

 fringes is pale ash-grey, much scalloped and edged by two dark lines, 

 and a row of isolated dots " (' Die Schmet. von Europa,' vol. v., pt. 3, 

 pp. 338-339). 



a. var. ccerulescens, Ckll. Mr. Cockerell (' Entom.' xxii., p. 127) 

 writes : " A noteworthy form of dichroism, which must surely belong 

 to the first division*, is a change from blue to red or crimson, and 

 vice versa. This occurs in Catocala, e.g. in C. nupta var. ccerulescens 

 with blue secondaries, as recorded in the < Entomologist,' p. 51. 

 Reference to p. 51, shows us that at the meeting of the Sth. Lond. 

 Ent. Soc., Jan. 10th, 1889, " Mr. White exhibited a coloured drawing 

 of a variety of Catocala nupta having the red of the inferior wings 

 replaced by blue, the specimen having been taken by Dr. Laver at 



* This " division " refers to Mr. Cockerell's divisions of the probable changes 

 which pigments undergo. 



