THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



Vol. XXXIIL] APRIL, 1900. [No. 443. 



ABERRATIONS OF BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



By P. W. Frohawk, M.B.O.U., F.E.S. 



Plate III. 



Fig. 1. — Vanessa urticce, ? . The fine example figured is one 

 of two bred in July, 1896, from a brood of larvae taken the 

 previous month at Heathfield, Sussex, by Mr. A. W. Peach ; both 

 specimens are very similar in pattern. The whole of the 

 remainder of the brood were normal. The one figured, now in 

 the collection of Mr. A. B. Farn, has no trace of the usual blue 

 marginal spots. The second and third costal spots of the 

 primaries are united, forming a large black blotch, and the two 

 usual central black dots are missing ; the secondaries are un- 

 usually dark, having the upper central area black, and sprinkled 

 with a few red scales in the centre of the wing ; the basal 

 half is clothed with fulvous down. On the under side the 

 primaries are fairly normal, but the secondaries are uniformly 

 dusky. 



Fig. 2. — Vanessa atalanta, ? . As variation in this species is 

 of rare occurrence, I am pleased to be able to give a figure of 

 such a handsome example as the one represented ; it will at 

 once be noticed that the character of the apical white markings 

 is very unusual. The first costal blotch, which in normal speci- 

 mens is by far the largest, is in this aberration narrowed and cut 

 up into three small spots, the central one being reduced to a few 

 white scales. The amount of white which should occupy this 

 portion of the wing has apparently shifted its position lower 

 down, forming a large white spreading blotch occupying the 

 whole width between the lower radial nervure and second median 

 nervule ; below this on the red band is a comparatively large 

 white spot spreading outwards into the black margin; at the 



ENTOM. — APRIL, 1900, K 



