426 BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 



exactly repeats the colour-differences of the wings. Shape of the abdomen on the 

 left slender, on the right rounded and bulged with the anal end sharply bent to the 

 left. Of the outer sexual organs only the left one somewhat projecting, anal clasp 

 distinct, the female side crippled. Expanse — right side 35mm., left 33mm. Bred in 

 Bremen. Coll. Wiskott (Wiskott, Festschr. Ver. Settles. Ins., p. 109). 



[3. Similar to the above. In coll. Staudinger, in litt. (Schultz, Woch. fur 

 Ent., ii., p. 393). 



Variation. — The variation of the species is not at all striking, 

 although a good aberration is occasionally obtained (e.g., Ent. 

 Record, xiii., p. 163). Second brood examples of the species 

 are usually small and poor in colour (Ent. Wk. Int., iv., p. 191). 

 Adkin records a specimen from Lewisham with the ground colour 

 unusually pale, giving the insect a particularly bright appearance. 

 Butler notes a male with ocellated spots of quite a " Cambridge 

 blue " quite different from any others examined. Barrett says 

 (Lep. Brit., ii., p. 5) that " specimens occur rarely, in which the 

 hindwings are almost or entirely destitute of rosy colour, being of 

 a dull yellowish instead. Webb has specimens with the forewings 

 of a putty colour, with the usual markings ; Briggs one in which 

 the shades and marbling of the forewings are nearly absent, but 

 the lost colour seems concentrated in the triangular spot which 

 lies against the outer line ; another curious aberration is recorded, 

 in which the ocellus of the hindwing is replaced by a triangular 

 dark spot." This latter form we would call ab. caeca, n. ab. Daws 

 notes (Ent. Rec, i., p. 98) that, on June 21st, 1890, he cap- 

 tured at Mansfield, Notts, a $ in which the right underwing 

 is without the ocellated spot, having instead a dark triangular 

 mark, all the other wings being normal. Hall exhibited, at 

 the meeting of the South London Entomological Society, on May 

 9th, 1895, an example in which the ocellated spots are much ob- 

 scured, and Oberthiir notes that, in France, aberrations are found 

 with the hindwings pale, and the ocellated spots of the hindwings 

 obscured. We ourselves have an example in which the ground colour 

 of both fore- and hindwings is white, the markings and ocellated 

 spot being normal ; this came from Coverdale's collection and 

 may be called ab. albescens, n. ab. Bacot observes that in his 

 experience the range of variation in S. ocellata is slight, confined, 

 except in a few abnormal cases, to slight differences in depth of colour, 

 and occasional absence or greater brightness of the pink or purple tints. 

 Webb has a peculiar $ which we considered at first to be 

 a gynandromorph, but Chapman describes it as a large $ 375 

 ins. in expanse, the right side affected by partial albinism, 

 or at any rate, loss of colour with weak and distorted scales. 

 This especially affects the whole of the right side of the abdominal 

 segments to end, which is dorsally nearly white on the right side ; 

 on the left much darker than usual, nearly of the colour of the 

 dark centre of the thorax ; the line of demarcation of the two tints 

 is absolutely straight and median, producing a very peculiar effect. 

 There is a white patch at posterior corner of mesothorax, but meta- 

 thorax and 1st abdominal are normal. The antenna? are 2 , the 

 right one looks shorter, but this is the result of having been broken 

 off and replaced. The right forewing is - r l (T shorter than left. On 

 the upperside, the specimen looks rubbed and damaged at the 

 wingbase, along the lower margin of cell and along veins 2 and 3. 



