Insects. 



7797 



which he has so satisfactorily proved that this species is entirely distinct from E. sub- 

 fulvata.— 7//, Harpur Crewe. 



Note on Eupithecia succenturiata and E. sub/ulvala. — Last autumn, in a locality 

 where E. succenturiata had been previously taken in the imago, I beat from mugwort 

 (Artemisia vulgaris) a number of pug larvae. Several of these were plainly E. absin- 

 thiata, but the greater number reminded me at once of the larvae of E. subfulvata, 

 which I had reared from the egg a season or two before. Having no notes or figure 

 to refer to, I could not myself decide how far the resemblance extended, or where it 

 failed ; but on my sending some of these mugwort larvae to Mr. Buckler, who I 

 knew had figured E. subfulvata, he at once wrote to say that he had compared them 

 with his figures (life size and magnified), and found them decidedly distinct. This 

 announcement caused me to send batches of them to others of my friends, including 

 Mr. Doubleday, Mr. Crewe, Mr. D'Orville, and Mr. Batty of Sheffield, and at the 



Eupithecia subfulvata. 



Eupithecia succenturiata. 



same time set me collecting, for comparison, all the pug larvae I could find in my own 

 neighbourhood feeding on yarrow {Achillea Millefolium) : some yarrow-feeders were 

 also sent me by Mr. Crewe and Mr. Batty, and all these (though found in three such 

 distant localities as Exeter, Sheffield and Drayton-Beauchamp, and varying somewhat 

 among themselves) could be distinguished from the mugwort-feeders, both by their 

 colour, and the form of their markings. Our hopes therefore of breeding E. succen- 

 turiata rose high ; nor have they been disappointed : this summer, in June and July, 

 myself and friends have bred from the mugwort larvae upwards of thirty uioths, which, 

 with ten others bred by Mr. Norcombe, who collected the larvae for himself, make a 

 total of more than forty, every one of which was the typical E. succenturiata, having 

 the central space of the wings white ; whilst from the yarrow-feeders we have bred 

 some eighty moths, every one of them E. subfulvata, brown and gray without any 

 white. From mugwort more than forty E. succenturiata, and not one E. subfulvata 

 or E. cognata ; from yarrow eighty E. subfulvata, and not a single typical E. succen- 

 turiata. Both species vary indeed in the colour of the dark border of all the wings. 

 I bred both of them with reddish brown borders, instead of the more usual blackish 

 gray, but in every case the colour of the central space (except of course where traversed 

 by strigae) was a beautiful pure white in E. succenturiata, and in E. subfulvata brown 

 or brown and gray. When to all this I add that their cages were kept side by side, 

 and treated precisely in the same way (nearly all the specimens of E. succenturiata 

 had emerged before E. subfulvata began to appear) I think the evidence in favour of 

 tbeir being distinct species, and not merely varieties of the same, is tolerably con- 

 clusive. Mr. Duubleday I know regards it so, and I understand that M. Guenee 

 agrees with him.—/. Hellins ; Exeter, September 16, 1861. 



