NOTES ON THE GENUS EUPITHECIA. 173 



Eupithecia sobrinata, Hb. — The Dover var. (or bon. sp. ?), 

 which is usually spoken of as stevensata, Webb (a name never 

 satisfactorily published), was named anglicata by Herrich- 

 Schaeffer in 1863 (C. B. Zool.-min. Ver. Kegensb. xvii. 23), and 

 must so stand in future lists. The interesting occurrence of a 

 perfect specimen at Freshwater (Entom. xxxviii. 161) seems con- 

 clusively to point to some other food-plant than juniper. Accord- 

 ing to Venables' ' Guide to the Isle of Wight' (p. 483), Brading 

 Down, many miles from Freshwater, " boasts of the single shrub 

 of juniper yet found in the Isle of Wight, and it, like the yew its 

 neighbour, may have been planted." 



II. SUCCENTURIATA, INNOTATA, AND ALLIES. 



There are one or two other questions of the possible specific 

 identity of pairs of allies which have not yet been adequately 

 discussed ; and, again, a few other perennial questions of the 

 same kind, which it seems in vain to answer unless workers 

 will take more pains than at present to acquaint themselves with 

 the existent literature. 



In this latter category I would place the succenturiata-subfal- 

 vata question, although I do not wish to be dogmatic, or to 

 ignore the statement of Heylaerts (Tijd. Ent. xvi. 146) that he 

 once took the two forms in cop. The subject has recently been 

 reopened in this country by my friend Mr. E. M. Dadd (Ent. 

 Kec. xviii. 261), who treats the species named as a "puzzling 

 group " which still wants clearing up. He depends chiefly on the 

 experience of Herr Herz, who on one occasion bred both species 

 from larvae beaten from yarrow, and could not, or did not, sort 

 out his larvae ; also on the testimony of the eminent specialist, 

 Herr Dietze, which, however, seems only to have reached him 

 second-hand. Dietze published a fine plate of the various forms, 

 with notes thereon, in the ' Iris ' of 1906 (vol. xix. pi. iv. pp. 121- 

 126), and treats all as making one variable species. In the text 

 occurs this very definite statement : " That these are a single 

 species is no longer mere conjecture, but has been demonstrated 

 by anatomical investigation." He does not adduce the evidence, 

 the article being mainly concerned with the variations figured, 

 which are considered to show pretty complete gradations, though, 

 to my eyes, the darkest succenturiata (ab. disparata, fig. 7), with 

 the white persisting below the discal dot, is entirely different from 

 the lightest forms of subfulvata (figs. 19 and 21), with at least a 

 tinge of rust-colour in that position. I wrote to the author, 

 pointing out that in Britain the two were abundantly distinct 

 species, and had been differentiated as larvae and pupae, as well 

 as imagines, and asking for further particulars of the biological 

 evidence on which he relied. I received a very courteous reply, 

 in which he informed me that Herr Petersen, of Reval, had found 

 the male genitalia indistinguishable, and that his own long 



