130 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



bands were much more common than those with wide ones. He 

 further notes (E.M.M., xxxiii., p. 201) among these 1897 specimens 

 the following : ( An exceedingly small male, not more than 

 quarter the size of a fully-developed moth, which bore evidence of 

 starvation in having the wings almost devoid of scales ; the pale 

 lines, too, which form the edge of the band, are in close contact 

 for their entire length, so that in lieu of a band there is merely 

 a double ochreous line, (2) Two other males, both under-sized, 

 had these lines in contact on the inner margin and partly' across, 

 three or four of them closely approximating, with a portion of the 

 area (usually darker than the rest of the wing) filled up with the 

 same pale ochreous scales. The curves of the transverse lines 

 vary very much in different specimens, and are not always alike 

 in both wings. There is considerable diversity in shade, but all 

 are cold brown, never approaching the richer red-brown of southern 

 examples. There is rather less variety in the markings of the females, 

 but they are of the same general character. The curves of the 

 transverse lines differ considerably, the latter sometimes approach- 

 ing each other on the inner margin, and the direction of the outer 

 lines varies especially, from almost straight to a distinct curve in 

 one specimen, with a band of average width, the space between 

 the lines entirely filled in with pale whitish-grey ; no corresponding 

 specimen appears among the males, where the band is only pale when 

 narrow. Some of the females have a tendency towards the brown 

 hue of the $ s, but these are all large and evidently well-nurtured 

 specimens. Hills observes that the Folkestone examples vary, 

 some of the males being redder and more uniform in tint, others 

 darker and browner, the browner with the paler central area more 

 distinct ; the females are all grey, some with the inner part of the 

 central band much darker than in others, occasionally the hind- 

 wings are exceptionally -dark. Now and again semidiaphanous ex- 

 amples occur, and the pale median lines may be absent, confluent, 

 or confluent only at inner margin or centre. Tremayne notes one in 

 which the united lines form an arch on the forewing, and Battley 

 a female with a light circle between the two transverse lines of 

 right forewing, whilst on the left forewing one of the nervures ends 

 abruptly in the centre of the wing. Barrett records a ? 

 from Belfast with both transverse lines absent from the right 

 forewing, which has merely a whitish oblique cloud, and another 

 with the first line bordered outwardly with black-brown ; Mason 

 possesses a $ of a pale drab colour. Vaughan .observes that in 

 June, 1884, he obtained dark well-marked males differing from 

 southern examples at Kilmartin. Rossiter notes the specimens as 

 specially brown from the Hebrides, and Clarke that the Isle of 

 Man form appears darker than the English one. Hoffmann states 

 that the females are as frequently grey as brown in the Upper 

 Hartz, whilst Knech records very dark females from Chiasso in 

 Tessin, and Milliere figures (Iconographie, Ann. Lyon, xvii., pi. 94, 

 fig. 7, 1869) a curious bleached aberration of the $ , devoid of 

 markings, from Lederer's collection. No aberration of this species 

 appears to have been described except the following : 



a. war. (et. ab.) pygmaea, Reut., "Act. Soc. F. F. Fenn.," ix., p. 28 (1893). — 

 Multo minor, corpore obscuriore, strigis transversis alamm anticarum rectis, 



