233 

 THE 'RADIATED' VARIETIES IN THE 

 GENUS ARCTIA, ETC. 



GEO. T. PORRITT, F.L.S., F.E.S., 

 Huddersfield; Author of the 'List of Yorkshire Le/ido/teru. 



At page 220 of ' The Naturalist ' for 1888, Mr. John Cordeaux says of 

 the variety radiata of Arctia Iubricipeda, ' almost exclusively peculiar 

 to Heligoland . . . met with, but very rarely, in Holland and on the 

 East coast of England.' As the former part of this statement is copied 

 into the current number of the 'Entomologist' (T. D. A. Cockerell, 

 Entom., xxii, p. 148), it may be as well to correct it before it spreads 

 further. The form is not at all uncommon about York, and all the 

 collections of that city I have seen contain it. That of the late 

 Mr. T. H. Allis, now in the York Museum, contains a long series of 

 it ; and another collector in York, less than a year ago, showed me 

 in his boxes, I should say, quite two hundred specimens, all bred 

 from larvae collected when nearly full grown from the gardens, etc., 

 in York. The variety occurs in other parts of the county as well, but 

 York appears to be its head-quarters. The variety of A. menthastri 

 (var. walkeri) also occurs in Yorkshire, but seems to be most plentiful 

 in Scotland, where of late years it has been got rather freely. And 

 at Huddersfield there is a corresponding variety of A. mendica. 

 A batch of eggs found at large in 1887 produced forty-four moths, 

 only about eight of which approached the ordinary form of the 

 species (see E.M.M., xxv., p. 39); and from a similar batch of about 

 fifty eggs, found wild on the same spot last June, I have this year 

 bred forty-five moths, none of which are of the ordinary type, and 

 the brood altogether is much more remarkable even than the brood 

 I reared last year. Some of the females are much blacker, and more 

 streaked or ' radiated ' than any vars. radiata or 7valkeri of the 

 other two species I ever saw. 



A small extent of ground at Grimescar, on which both batches of 

 eggs were found, is the only spot we know at Huddersfield where 

 mendica is to be taken, and the race there is clearly a very distinct 

 and extraordinary one. 



Mr. Cockerell, too, by suggesting the name obscura for the black- 

 bordered form of Abraxas grossulariata (Entom., xxii, p. 55) is 

 evidently unaware that it has for years been known as variety 

 varleyata. 



June St/i, 1889. 

 Aug. 1889. 



