SMERINTHUS OCELLATA. 427 



It is, however, not so, but the scaling is weak, nearly white, and 

 the individual scales deformed and set nearly on end. The costal 

 half of the wing is rather paler than the other, and the markings 

 are slightly altered. The hindwing is a little paler and a little 

 brighter in colouring than the left. The underside of the hindwing 

 is paler and less distinctly marked than the other, and the markings 

 are a little nearer hind margin. The forewing beneath is more 

 largely pale and colourless than above, the weak scaling affects 

 base of wing on its inner half, and, dividing into patchy streaks, 

 reaches the hind margin in several places. The effect is very like 

 that of the white patches on certain gynandromorphous (?) $ s of 

 Porthetria dispar, but is due to weakness of scales and colour 

 (albinism ?) confined to portions of one side only. There is no 

 trace of gynandromorphism." Bartel observes an aberration in the 

 collection of Kricheldorfif from southern France, in which the hind- 

 wings are entirely red, except a small area at the apex, the ocellated 

 spot is unusually large, as in 6*. planus, so that the specimen looks 

 as if it were an approach to that species. In the Pyrenees, 

 the species is said to attain oftentimes an exceptionally large 

 size, and the specimens remind one in other respects somewhat of S. 

 atlanticus, whilst Staudinger describes a single $ from the Saisan 

 district that differs greatly from the species in all other localities in the 

 sharply defined whitish-grey (instead of reddish-grey) colouring of 

 its forewings, the base being almost white. The large Mauretanian 

 atlanticus is considered by Oberthiir a geographical race only of 

 this species, and not distinct, he finds the latter to vary slightly 

 in the colour of the hindwings. Leech refers (Proc. ZooL 

 Soc. Lond., 1888, p. 587) to S. pla?ius, Walker (Cat., vii., 

 p. 254) and argus, Menetries (Enum. Lep. Mus. Petrop., p. 136), 

 as the Japanese and Chinese representatives of this species, 

 and states that " there is nothing whatever to separate planus from 

 the European type," and that he does not attach value to the 

 unimportant character, mentioned by Pryer, that the caudal horn 

 of the larva is green instead of sky-blue. At a meeting of 

 the Berlin Entom. Society, on May 4th, 1899, Schultz exhibited an 

 insect as an example of S. hybr. hybridus that he says gave the 

 general impression of S. ocellata, but was yet strikingly paler, and 

 without red in the eyespots of the hindwings. It was reared from 

 a larva found wild at Stettin on Salix (Berl. Ent. Zeits., xliv., 

 Sitz. p. 29). As nothing special was noted about the larva one 

 suspects that it may be an aberration of S. ocellata. The following 

 are the already described forms of the species known to us : 



a. ab. pallida, n. ab. Ocellatus ab., Tutt, "Ent. Rec," xiii., p. 163 (1901). — 

 The forewings are of a delicate grey, with the normal transverse lines fairly well- 

 marked, a brown margin to the median ring, a brown patch directly below, and 

 another centrally on the inner margin (and continued towards the base) ; the outer 

 margin is also filled up with a brown patch, roughly triangular, the base formed 

 by the curve directly below the apex of the wing, and the apex on the submarginal 

 line. The two forewings, however, are not quite symmetrical, either in the arrange- 

 ment of the transverse lines, or in the darker patches of colour. The hindwings are 

 also grey, slightly tinged with yellowish, the nervures alone grey, the ocellated spot 

 is well marked, the pupil, a pale ring, and black outer rings being well-defiued. 

 The most striking features are, of course, the absence of the rosy-red tints in the 

 hindwings, and the metallic blue ring that surrounds the pupil of the ocellated spot, 

 but the absence of the rosy tinge of the forewing is also very noticeable, s . Bred 

 L. W. Newman, June 2nd, 1900. Larva from sallow, Bexley woods. 



