91 



tant from the place where the female was taken, but in the 

 same county. From the Rev. J. Gordon Holmes, of Antrim 

 (to whose generosity I am indebted for the two males from 

 that locality), I learn that during the months of May and June 

 he took at " light " in Antrim three specimens in 1886 and 

 five in the present year, one of which was almost pure white, 

 and appears to agree with the variety that Hubner figures 

 under the name of rustica (Hub., 1790, Vol. 2, plate 50, 

 No. 150), and for which he gives the locality of Eastern 

 Hungary. Mr. W. F. de V. Kane (who has very kindly fur- 

 nished me with sundry notes on this subject) verifies another 

 capture in Co. Cork, a male, resembling in shade the darkest 

 of the Irish specimens exhibited, that was taken by Mr. Chas. 

 Donovan in or before the year 1885. We have thus distinct 

 records of this form of the male from the North-Eastern and 

 South- Western counties ; females have been taken in Co/s 

 Dublin and Waterford, but as they were not bred from, it is 

 impossible to say to which variety they should be referred, 

 and the species appears to be altogether unrecorded from the 

 West. In the list of the Lepidoptera of Ireland, by Mr. 

 Edwin Birchall, published in the Entom. Mo. Mag, 1866, 

 Mendica is inserted with a note, " Mr. Greene's list," which 

 would lead to the supposition that Mr. Birchall had no per- 

 sonal knowledge of its occurrence. ' This list referred to was 

 drawn up by the Rev. Joseph Greene, and published, 

 together with one by the Rev. A. R. Hogan, by the Dublin 

 University Zoological and Botanical Association in or about 

 the year 1857, and was, I am informed by Mr. Greene, com- 

 piled in a large measure from information supplied to him by 

 others; and it is not unlikely that the capture or captures that 

 led to the name appearing in the list may have been, like 

 those from Dublin and Wicklow, females. We are, therefore, 

 without any definite record of the usual black form of the 

 male having been observed, and it appears to me to be 

 exceedingly probable that the light-coloured male alone 

 occurs in Ireland." 



