NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 285 



apparent corpse, without reaction to pressure by my fingers, a house 

 fly alighted on it and walked over it, whereon the skin was thrown 

 into violent contraction ; a striking instance of the independence of the 

 life of parts of the insect organisation. — D. Sharp; August 1st, 189G. 



Triph^na subsequa specifically distinct from T. orbona. — Mr. 

 Nash [ante, p. 262) asks, Is Triphmna subsequa in a true sense a distinct 

 species from T orboyia ? The reason for his question apparently being 

 a statement he makes that " A well-known local collector in the 

 forest (i.e. the New Forest) told me that he had obtained ova from 

 subsequa, and therefrom bred subsequa and orbona intermixed, pointing 

 out at the time the specimens." I assume of course that the species 

 intended are subsequa, Hb., and orbona, Fb., as the names are used in 

 Doubleday's list, and without wishing for one moment to throw doubt 

 upon the bona fides of this worthy collector, whoever he may be, I 

 would venture to say that there is some great mistake here. That 

 such mistakes will happen I know full well, having myself been the 

 victim of one of a similar nature, which happened in this way. Some 

 few years since, when both these species were occurring pretty freely 

 at sugar, together with a sprinkling of T. pronuba, a collector, than 

 whom I know no keener, sent me some ova labelled subsequa, together 

 with a note saying that he was glad to be able to send me these ova, 

 as I should see, as the larvae grew, how very different they were from 

 orbona; the eggs duly hatched, and the larvae grew apace, and it was 

 very soon apparent that they were not subsequa, but in due course 

 produced a very fine lot of pronuba. The only explanation that I have 

 ever been able to obtain is that " the pronuba eggs must have been in 

 the box when the subsequa was put in it," and I suppose the latter did 

 not lay. Is it not possible that something of this sort may have 

 happened in the case of the New Forest brood ? There can, I think, 

 be no doubt as to the title of subsequa to specific rank ; not only is the 

 mark (the black spot on the costa) by which we are accustomed to 

 distinguish it in the imago stage very constant, but, compared with 

 orbona, the shape of the wings appears to me to be very different. In 

 the larval stage the conspicuous ochreous dorsal line and accompanying 

 rows of quadrangular black spots distinguish subsequa at once from the 

 other more sombrely marked members of the genus. — Robert Adkin ; 

 Lewisham, August, 1896. 



Plusia chrysitis : the Banded Form. — Mr. Kane, in his useful 

 and interesting Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of Ireland (ante, p. 213), 

 falls into an error in his reference to this form of P. chrysitis. I take 

 the banded form commonly enough about Chester, although not so 

 frequently as the one usually regarded as the type, in which the 

 median brown band of the primaries is more or less broken. Newman 

 did not find the banded form rare, as will be seen from the following 

 (' British Moths,' p. 452) : — " Their colour " (fore wings) " is metalhc 

 golden-green, v/ith a brown blotch at the base, another and larger 

 brown blotch at the middle of the costal margin, and a third opposite 

 this on the inner margin ; in some of my specimens the costal and 

 inner-marginal blotches unite in forming a median band." — J. Arkle; 

 2, George Street, Chester. 



ENTOM. — SEPT. 1896. Z 



