368 ' Burnet s ' of Filey, Yorks. 



hippocrepidis received from L. W. Newman, in which the 

 black border is reduced to a mere line. Richard South, 

 however, in ' The Moths of the British Isles,' describes the 

 border in hippocrepidis as rather broad. Hybridism in the 

 zygaenid moths is of course no new thing, and South {loc. cit.) 

 mentions filipend 11 lae and lonicerae hybrids from a Yorkshire 

 locality. The ab. hippocrepidis is supposed to be a cross 

 het'ween filipendulae and irifolii, and occurs occasionally when 

 colonics of the two species are close to each other. It is also 

 well known that hybrids in this genus are capable of fertile 

 pairing. 



I failed to find any pairings between the two species, but 

 did see one oi filipendulae and the alleged hybrid. This leads 

 me to suppose that although such pairings have been observed 

 in nature, and although I saw what appeared to be the as- 

 sembling of males of both species to an unemerged filipendulae 

 2, cross pairings must be relatively rare. 



If the tendency to cross-pairing were in any degree com- 

 parable to the tendency to true pairing, and if the Filey 

 filipendulae are every year in the same numerical superiority, 

 that species would gradually absorb the other. In fact, if 

 the mixed colony be of any antiquity, Z . lonicerae would have 

 already disappeared from it. 



When breeding these insects it is difficult to obtain good 

 specimens. They emerge in the morning for the most part 

 and crawl over each other while their wings are drying. When 

 put in the cyanide bottle they crawl over each other in a sort 

 of frenzy, and indulge in frequent short acts of copulation 

 for about half an hour before finally dying. I can recommend 

 leaving the cage in bright sunlight for a short time, and then 

 placing it for some hours in a dark cupboard. Emergence 

 will start with the sunlight and continue after it is cut off, 

 and the insects will remain quiet till dry. The administration 

 of a drop of methylated chloroform to each in a separate 

 pill-box will anasthetize the insect for long enough to avoid 

 the curious stage of excitement that cyanide induces in this 

 genus. — Shelley, Huddersfield, September $th, 1921. 



It must be forty or more years since I first collected Z. 

 lonicerae at Filey, and on that visit the species was in the 

 utmost profusion on the slopes of the cliffs. But, although so 

 long ago, I remember noting that there were pragtically 

 no filipendulae among them, and I don't know that I saw even 

 one. The date of my visit, I believe, was two or three weeks 

 later than that of Dr. Smart, so it is, of course, possible 

 that filipendulae may have been already over. That it has 

 been known to occur at Filey for many years, however, is 

 evident from Mr. J. W. Taylor's record of it there, in the first 

 edition of ' Yorkshire Lepidoptera.' — G. T. P. 



Naturalist 



