SOME BRITISH FORMS OF MELITjEA AURINIA. 87 



found only too often my attempts have left my comprehension 

 of the subject in a worse state than ever. In this I am not 

 alone. Some of my friends, men too of some experience, have 

 very indefinite opinions on the subject, or no opinion at all. I 

 therefore set about systematically studying the markings in 

 detail, following each spot or blotch through its variations, and 

 endeavouring to arrive thereby at a more definite understanding 

 of the classification and distribution of the species. My ex- 

 perience and material, however, are very limited compared with 

 those of many others, and I have therefore set down the following 

 notes in the hope that someone who has more thoroughly mastered 

 the subject may be able to help me, and others like me, to a 

 better comprehension of it. 



Melitcea aurinia (Eott.). — Upper side. Fore wings. — From 

 the costal margin to the costal nervure is the dark blackish 

 brown which forms the boundaries of most of the colour 

 spaces. This I speak of hereafter as dark. Here it is more 

 or less flecked with ochreous or light scales. 



The inner margin to the first nervure is dark throughout its 

 whole extent. The base of the wing is dark. Beyond that the 

 discoidal cell is divided into four most irregularly shaped areas 

 or spots, of which the first and third are ochreous, and the 

 second and fourth fulvous red. Another fulvous, acutely tri- 

 angular spot occupies the space at the junction of the second 

 nervure with the discoidal cell. 



Beyond the dark base of the wing, between the first and 

 second nervures, are four irregular spots, corresponding in colour 

 to the four in the discoidal cell, and which with them might 

 almost be said to form four bands across the base of the wing, 

 were it not for their very irregular shape, and that the fourth 

 band is broken by the triangular spot before referred to. 



Outside the discoidal cell — towards the hind margin — is a 

 double ochreous row (the first row), separated and bounded by 

 dark bands, and further broken up by the dark nervures into a 

 double series of elongated, somewhat quadrangular, ochreous 

 blotches, longest in the centre, and narrowing into shorter and 

 often irregular spots, as they approach the costal margin and the 

 middle of the wing. The double row of ochreous spots is con- 

 tinued as a single row to the first nervure by broadly marked 

 quadrate blotches. 



Outside the dark mark which bounds the ochreous, a reddish- 

 fulvous band (the second row) passes across the wing to the 

 first nervure, and is broken by the dark nervures into quad- 

 rangular spots with ochreous centres, having their hind margins 

 concave, and that next the base of the wing convex. Beyond 

 this, and separated from it by a dark waved band, is a row of 

 semilunar spots (the third row), their convex sides next the base 

 of the wing being ochreous, and their straight sides next the hind 



