96 



islands, but it appears to be more intensely marked in the particular 

 points indicated than any examples that I have seen from elsewhere. 



In Ireland, more particularly in the north, there is, I think, a 

 tendency to a brighter red colour in some individuals than is usual 

 among the English, but it does not appear to indicate any constant 

 form. 



In Scotland endless varieties occur, including probably all those of 

 general distribution ; but in addition to these there is one form, 

 namely, var. curtisii, Newm., which does not appear to occur elsewhere, 

 in which the fore-wings are of a rich claret colour, more or less 

 suffused with black, sometimes entirely so, and the usual markings 

 are subject to sundry modifications. It is to this form that I wish 

 more particularly to call your attention. 



On 27th July, 1825, Curtis captured a moth that flew out of the 

 heather on the Isle of Bute, and described and figured it in his 

 "British Entomology," vol. viii, fasc. 340, under the name of Tr/- 

 plicena consequa, Hb. In 187 1 Newman, after describing under the 

 name of Triphcena curtisii a number of larvae received from Forres, 

 N.B. (' Entom ,' v, p. 224), refers to Curtis's figure, and says, "as 

 it certainly is not the Nodua consequa of Hubner," he proposes to 

 call it after Curtis. He then goes on to say that Norman, of Forres, 

 had taken the perfect insect somewhat abundantly, that there were 

 then in the possession of himself and others a great number of pupae 

 which would on emergence "infallibly reveal their ancestry," if, as 

 had been asserted by some entomologists, the supposed species 

 should turn out to be but a form of T. comes. These pup^e on 

 emergence did reveal their ancestry, and from that time there has 

 been no doubt as to T. curtisii of Newman being a variety, though 

 a well-defined one, of T. comes. 



Probably the original specimen taken by Curtis was one of the 

 most southerly captures of this particular variety, and even in Bute 

 and Arran it is rare in comparison with the other generally distri- 

 buted forms. Going northward, we find in Inverness, Aberdeen- 

 shire, and Elgin (in which Forres is situated), curtisii in increasing 

 numbers ; and in Sutherland, one of the extreme northern counties 

 of the Scottish mainland, it also occurs, still mixed with the more 

 ordinary forms. Digressing for a moment to the westward, a general 

 mixture of forms occurs in the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, but 

 the representatives of the curtisii form show a general inclination to 

 a peculiar grey mottling of the dark claret-red, and a strongly marked 

 outlining of the stigmata, a combination which appears to be very 

 rarely met with elsewhere. Going northward again to Orkney we 

 reach the limit of the range of the species, and here we find it repre- 

 sented only by an extremely dark form of the curtisii variety. 



Curtis, when he described under the name of T. consequa his Bute 

 insect, which we now recognise as the original specimen of var, cur- 

 tisii, took considerable pains to differentiate between it and the other 

 "British species" of Triphcena ; he says, "That my specimen is dis- 



