532 MR, L. DONCASTER ON COLOUR-VARIATION [ Dec. 12, 
the river-bed about two miles above Malaga, i. ¢. about a mile from 
the place just mentioned, but only a few feet above sea-level. 
There were only 25 males and 39 females (Table VI), but they 
are of interest partly on account of the preponderance of females, 
and partly because the proportions closely resemble those shown 
in Table V., although the beetles were obtained from near sea- 
level, 7. e. at the same kind of altitude as those from Palo. In 
this collection there were no plain greens. 
On April 7 collecting was interrupted for nearly three weeks, 
but on April 25 and 27 I was able in the short time at my 
disposal to obtain 23 males and 33 females at Palo (Table I'V 6). 
These numbers are too small to make possible a close comparison 
with the earlier gathering, but they are of importance from the 
fact that 12 of the males and 14 of the females were of the pure 
green type, usually with a yellowish tinge and nearly always 
brighter in colour than the green striped form. At the beginning 
of the month only 3 specimens of this type occurred ina collection 
of 377. 
On the 26th I visited the bushes up the river-bed and gathered 
23 males and 31 females (Table VI 6), which included 4 males 
and 9 females of the pure green type, the proportions among the 
remainder being similar to those found on April 6. And on 
the 28th I obtained 40 males and 47 females from the road to 
the north (Table V 6), and here again the plain green type was 
frequent, while three weeks before it had been almost absent. 
When I first arrived at Malaga I found that a beetle larva was 
common on the Spartiwm, and a couple which I kept alive both 
hatched to the pure green form of Gronioctena. It occurred to 
me that the green type might develop black pigment later, but 
several which I kept alive for a week showed no change of colour. 
Finally, when I was about to return to England, I gathered a 
quantity of larve in the hope of bringing them back alive; some 
of these came from Palo, where the predominant type was green, 
others from the north road locality, where the majority were 
red. The greater part died on the voyage, but I reared to 
maturity three of the Palo batch and eleven from the north road, 
and every one of these was plain green. There were 4 males 
and 10 females. 
I thought at Malaga that possibly the plain green type belonged 
to another species; and I attempted to find out whether it ever 
paired with the other forms, but was not successful. Very few, 
however, were pairing at that time, so no importance can be 
attached to the fact that I never found the two types paired 
together. 
On my return to England, Dr. Sharp very kindly examined 
some specimens of the green form and compared them with the 
spotted red, and reported that he believed they belonged to the 
same species. It must be concluded that as the season advances 
a new type begins to appear, and, judging by the fact that all the 
