189S.] 243 



wings rather glossy, fuscous-blact, tinged with violet and minutely speckled moi'e or 

 less with pale scales ; cilia, basal lialf fuscous-grey, speckled with black, apical half 

 paler grey, unspeckled. Exp. al., 10'5 — 11 mm. Sind-wings satiny-grey ; cilia 

 brownish-grey. Abdomen greyish-fuscous. Legs, externally deep fuscous, very 

 distinctly ringed with white at all the tarsal and the hind tibial joints, internally 

 much paler. 



Type, ^ ? (selected out of 16 specimens), Mus. Bnks. 



Hah. : England — Sussex (Brighton). 



An examination o£ the very long series of examples bred and 

 caught by Mr. W. H. B. Fletcher shows that this species is decidedly 

 variable, but only in one direction. In the commonest form, which 

 has been selected as the type, the fore-wings are unicolorous except 

 for the minute pale scales which a lens reveals, but individuals occur 

 in which there is a small white spot on the costa at about two-thirds of 

 its length Another form shows a small dorsal white spot opposite 

 this costal one, which latter is then the more strongly pronounced, 

 whilst in the rarest and most remarkable variety yet known, for which 

 I propose the name fasciata, these opposite spots are replaced by a 

 complete but rather obscure whitish fascia: the tendency towards this 

 form of variation seems stronger in the female than in the male sex. 



A. Vinella, which I have so named in compliment to my friend, 

 Mr. A. C. Vine, of Brighton, who was the first to discover it and 

 has done much excellent work among the Lepidoptera of Sussex, is 

 closely allied to antliyllidella, Hb., but is easily separated from it by 

 its uniformJy darJcer colour, which is more particularly noticeable in 

 the hind-wings, and by the fact that it has not as a rule any pale 

 costal or dorsal spots, and when these are present they are white, 

 whereas antliyllidella as a rule lias pale opposite spots which are 

 ochreous. Vinella is also obviously distinct from all the allied foreign 

 species that are to be found in the Frey, Stainton, Walsingham, and 

 Zeller collections. 



The larva, which I have not yet seen, feeds on Genista tinctoria, 

 and Mr. W. II. B. Fletcher, who believes that there are two broods in 

 the year, tells me that it spins two leaves of its food-plant either flat 

 together or attaches them to the stem, and feeds on their inner sur- 

 faces, readily moving from one such habitation to another. LarvsD 

 which he found near Brighton in October and November, 1892, were 

 sleeved out in his garden on a plant of Cytisus racemosus, which, 

 however, was killed during the winter by severe frost, and in March, 

 1893, it was found that the surviving larvae had already pupated, and 

 the moths emerged early in the following summer. It is ])robable that 



X a 



