VARIATION IN VANESSA URTICJE. 23 



from what it is in the latter, being shorter, not flattened, and 

 lenticular. Characteristic is the form of the prothorax, par- 

 ticularly the stoutly bicarinate basal part. Probably the dis- 

 covery of the other sex will throw some light on the affinities 

 of the genus. 



Laccomerista rufescens, sp. nov. 

 Eufous, very smooth and shining, bare, the flagellum of antennae 

 covered with a microscopic white down ; wings brownish smoky to 

 shortly beyond the middle, the rest more slightly smoky, especially in 

 front, where there are hyaline streaks, the nervm^es reddish fuscous ; 

 the second (and shorter) basal cellule is rounded at the apex, where 

 it is wider than it is at the base ; the wings are highly iridescent ; 

 tegulse smooth and shining ; a short oblique nervure runs from the 

 middle of the second basal cellule. Tibiae and tarsi (and especially 

 the posterior) covered with fuscous pubescence. The apex of the 

 abdomen becomes gradually narrowed. $ . Length, 3 mm. 



Kuching, Borneo (John Hewitt, B.A.). 



VARIATION IN VANESSA URTICjE, L. : SEASONAL 



(CLIMATICAL) AND LOCAL VARIATION IN V. 



URTICM AND IN V. 10, L., BY WHICH THE 



TWO SPECIES SHOW A TENDENCY TO MEET 



IN FACIES. 



By T. Eeuss. 



(Continued from vol. xlii. p. 313.) 



Fig. 8, female, perhaps trans, ab. holandii, Lmblln., has 

 narrow wedge-shaped lunules, which move away from the fringe 

 instead of approaching it as in fig. 7. 



In fig. 9, male, the first costal lunule disappears, the other 

 costal lunules float yet further away from the fringe, and present 

 an aspect reminding of the disintegrated ocellus in the aberra- 

 tion of V. io, which I figured in September (vol. xlii. p. 223), 

 especially as the black basal parts approach the costal lunules, 

 but recede behind the anal lunules. 



An extreme case of this latter io-form detail, which confines 

 the reddish ground colour (that is, of the same peculiar tint 

 found in light-coloured specimens of V. io) to the anal parts of 

 the wing, as in V. io, is shown in fig. 10, the hind wing of ab. 

 ioprotofonnis. Here the chain of lunules is already broken up, 

 the first costal and the anal lunules disappear, so that only the 

 three large costal lunules remain, which are the same that 

 coalesce into an ocellus in V. io. Further io-form details of 

 this specimen, the description of which I now complete, are : 

 the under side is brown-black, also the median area of the fore 



