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some time after the insect lias been killed and preserved for 

 the cabinet. This change of colour is independent of light. 

 Now, I have found the living butterfly also with these spots 

 pale yellow, just like the faded specimens, which originally 

 had them orange. What are we to suppose ? Are there two 

 distinct varieties of the butterfly as regards the colour of 

 these spots, or do they sometimes fade to yellow even during 

 the lifetime of the butterfly ? I cannot help inclining 

 strongly to the former view, and yet the idea of insects 

 fading while still alive is not altogether new. Mr. T. L, 

 Mead, in his report on the butterflies of the Wheeler Expe- 

 dition to the Central Region of North America (published 

 1875), states that he took examples of a Phyciodes near Salt 

 Lake City, which ' had certainly been bleached by the action 

 of the weather.' And we know that the efi'ect of the dry 

 heat of the arid region of North America is to give a pallid 

 aspect to the whole fauna, though it is apparently not yet 

 proved that this bleaching influence extends to butterflies 

 after they are fully mature. I should like to ask the mem- 

 bers of the Society, therefore, whether in their experience 

 they have known Lepidoptera which were bleached or faded 

 when captured ; this bleaching having taken place during the 

 insect's lifetime, and since it emerged from the pupa-case 

 and dried its wings } Of course I do not refer to specimens 

 which have lost part of their scales, which are commoner 

 than entomologists would wish ; these are rubbed, and by no 

 means bleached. 



^'' Hybrids and Mongrels. — The question of the possibility 

 of true hybrid or mongrel races being established in a wild 

 state has been much discussed. It would be hard indeed to 

 prove that this is impossible, but there is certainly a strong 

 tendency among the progeny of crosses between nearly allied 

 forms to resemble one or the other parent, instead of being 

 , intermediate, while everybody knows that the blended 

 hybrid products of distinct species are in nearly every case 

 infertile. As illustrating this first-mentioned tendency, we 

 may notice Mr. Arkle's interesting note in the September 

 Entomologist. The progeny of a cross between Aviphidasys 

 bettdaria type and van donbledayaria, taken in Delamere 

 Forest, were all either type or doiibkdayaria. None were 



