58 THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 
FWEVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
RivisioNE DELLE SyntTomis PaLEARTICHE A DOPPIO CINGOLO GIALLO, E 
SAGGIO DI UNA CLASSIFICAZIONE DELLE VARIE SPECIE E Formp. (Revision 
of the Palzarctic Syntomis with double yellow girdle, and an attempt 
at the Classification of the various Species and Forms). With seven 
plates. By Conte Huitio Turat1.—Count Emilio Turati has been 
doing interesting and useful work in reviewing the Palearctic species 
of the Syntomis group. He has illustrated his monograph with seven 
plates, containing 76 figures of the moths’ wings and 19 of the different 
organs of the § genitalia. The latter are very instructive so far as 
they go, the former rather less so. When we look through a long series 
of Syntomis phegea we are immediately struck by the irregularities in 
size and form and the varying markings on the wings. Between 
pheyea ab. fenestrata 9 —nearly entirely white—and phegea ab. iphi- 
media——without a single white spot—there is an uninterrupted scale of 
intermediate forms, for very many of which names may be hunted out 
if required. Now plate I. gives us figs. of sixteen forms of S. phegea 
and five of Turati’s new species S. aequipuncta, four of which latter 
resemble one another so closely that they almost may be said to sin 
against the law of Syntomid variability. Now we must confess that we 
find these figures very unconvincing. We have taken many uncon- 
testable pheyea in Northern Italy that are spotted exactly as aequi- 
puncta is spotted. Feeling unconvinced we turn to the male genitalia 
and find a single fig. of aequipuncta with nothing distinctive about it 
save the uncus, and only one phegea with which to compare it. Ina 
certain number of genitalia of phegea that we have examined we have 
noted that the uncus is not very constant in form, and the aequipuncta 
here figured might not impossibly be taken for a phegea; we should 
suggest then that several other figs. of this moth’s genitalia should be 
given together with an equal number of the organs of phegea similarly 
exposed. From the text we should deduce that aequipuncta runs the 
risk of being confounded with mariana, Staudinger (or marjana, Turati 
spells it both ways), but this view is not supported by the figures either 
of the wings or of the genital organs. S. nagazzt, Tti., another newly 
described species from the South of Italy, is satisfactorily differentiated 
from marandica and cocandica, with which there is small danger of 
confounding it, but far less so from our old friend phegea; here again 
we should like to be able to consult a series of figures. 
Turati explains at some length the impossibility of cocandica being 
found on the Jura range, and tells us that two specimens in the British 
Museum make this false claim of having been captured in Switzerland. 
I happened to call on Dr. Chapman a few hours after he had received 
a letter from the Count asking for his opinion on the veracity of these 
two moths, and I suggested to him that Turati, or his authorities, had 
probably read Jura for Tura, and this indeed proves to be the case. 
The Syntomis wings have been described very carefully, and Turati 
makes it easy for a collector to determine the varietal or aberrational 
name of any of these moths about whose nomenclature he may feel 
uncertain. We cannot but regret that more space and time were not 
given to other and more convincing ways of differentiating species. In 
a word, if we are sure of our species, Turati’s very complete tables will 
at a glance tell us the name of the insect we are examining ; but if we 
