A CATALOGUE OF THE LEPIDOPTERA OF IRELAND. 315 



Belfast, asking me to identify a similar, but almost white, speci- 

 men, wliicb, with others, was taken at light by the Eev. J. Gordon 

 Holmes, of Antrim ; for these captures proved that the variety 

 occurred as a local form, and was not a casual genetic aberration. 

 In the same year, Mr. H. McDowell, of Passage West, Cork, took 

 a male v. rustica ; and, at a place thirty miles distant, a female, 

 from the ova of which the results are given below. A varied 

 series, bred from these by Mr. Eobert Adkin, President of the 

 South London Entomological and Natural History Society, were 

 exhibited at one of their meetings, accompanied by a valuable 

 paper, which is to be found in their 'Proceedings ' of 1887. From 

 another moiety, Mr. McDowell bred six males, three of which were 

 particoloured, with the hind wing and central area of the fore 

 wing of a smoky tint, while the costa and outer margin of the fore 

 wing were cream-coloured. Mr. Johnson, at Armagh, has taken, 

 with the cream-coloured form, another similar to that just described. 

 The males [supra), bred by Mr. Adkin and Mrs. Hutchinson, of 

 Leominster, varied from cream-colour to a pale smoky brown, 

 the females generally being characterised by the usual spots 

 being more or less obsolete. Mr. Adkin subsequently paired one 

 of his Irish v. rustica with an English typical female, and the two 

 males which resulted from the cross were of a buff colour, inter- 

 mediate between the two forms, very similar to my Glandore 

 specimen. In my correspondence with Mr. Adkin, to which he 

 refers in the above paper, I was unable to verify the capture of 

 any dark males in Ireland, but am now in a position to supple- 

 ment my information as before stated. We find, therefore, the 

 V. rustica, though occurring in the extreme north and south of 

 Ireland, is not the universal form. It is to be hoped that 

 additional facts may be gleaned as to its distribution. The late 

 Fredk. Bond, of Staines, to whom I first communicated the 

 discovery of the variety, informed me that he believed " a white 

 male mendica was preserved in a Liverpool collection, and that 

 Mr, Gregson, of Liverpool, had one of a cream-colour." Also 

 cf. Mosley's " Illustrations." Cream-coloured females are pre- 

 served in Mr. Barrett's and Mr. Jenner Weir's cabinets ; but in 

 Yorkshire are to be found variations in the opposite direction. 

 Mr. G. Piose, of Barnsley, has a dark male with the fore wings 

 traversed by two darker shadings formed of suffused blotches ; a 

 central one from mid-costa to the inner margin, and another 

 parallel one between it and the hind margin. Our knowledge of 

 the variety rustica occurring on the European continent seems to 

 be scanty. Staudinger, referring to Hiibner's figure 150, adds : 

 *' <? colore albido ? " and gives as a locality, " ?Hung. or." The 

 colour of the Irish form varies greatly in the male, but there 

 seems to be no distinct character in the female, except perhaps a 

 more than ordinary tendency to lose the spots normally present 

 in the type. 



(To be continued.) 



