HYLES EUPHORBIA. 205 



Treitschke (loc. cit.) an aberration is described with exceedingly 

 long antennae, which probably only relates to a crippled specimen. 

 Bartel further notes that Heyne has also shown him a specimen in 

 which the antennae are nearly double as long as normal. Ochsenheimer 

 mentions (loc. cit., iy., p. 181) a very interesting aberration whose 

 ground colour on the forewings is much mixed with blackish atoms and 

 has a stripe of like colour running obliquely from costa to the inner- 

 margin, whilst the red central band of the hindwings is coloured dark 

 brown in the outer half. This specimen, which was in Ochsenheimer's 

 collection, might form, Bartel considers, a transition to the much disputed 

 ab. esulae. A further aberration from the collection of Bornemann, of 

 Magdeburg, is described (and figured) by Ribbe ( Iris, ii., p. 186, t. 4, f. 

 4) as follows: " The specimen differs from typical D. euphorbiae princi- 

 pally in the very dark coloured outer margin of the forewings. Their 

 light ground colour appears only in a narrow waved band, running 

 from the apex to the middle of the inner margin and internally 

 somewhat shading off into the dark costal colour, otherwise the 

 forewings are dark ; the black band of the hindwings extends as far as 

 the outermargin ; the underside is correspondingly coloured and marked 

 to the upper, and darker than in normal D. euphorbiae ; epaulettes 

 internally white margined. The example was bred at Magdeburg." 

 He further notes that there is also in the Museum fur Naturkunde, 

 Berlin, in the Maassen collection, a large specimen of D. euphorbiae 

 with the forewings much darkened, which may likewise be regarded 

 as a transition to ab. esulae. Rey observes (Berl. Ent. Zeits., liv., 

 pp. 19-20) that examples bred in the autumn from pupae of the year 

 are smaller and duller than usual, Himsl that an imago reared from a 

 19-day old pupa was paler than usual. Newman's figures (Ent. Mag., m., 

 pi. viii and ix), and those of Curtis (Brit. E?it., v., fo. 3), made from 

 Devonshire examples, and supplied by Raddon, suggest that ab. rubescens 

 was a common form among those formerly reared in Britain. Curtis 

 notes (loc. cit.) that " the male has less black in the underwing than 

 the female, and an aberration of the former sex has occurred with 

 the fascia of the inferior wings of a dark rose colour instead of black." 

 Stephens says (Illus., i., p. 125). that "the colour of the wings varies 

 much ; in some specimens the rosy tint is remarkably vivid and powerful, 

 in others, it is somewhat obscure ; the marginal fascia on the posterior 

 wings also varies ; it is sometimes entire, at others deeply indented 

 on each side, and occasionally very narrow or very broad." Schefner 

 of Carlsruhe has fed larvae of H. euphorbiae on oak, and Ernst Heyne, 

 who saw the imagines resulting from this experiment, says that 

 three of the specimens were very pale in colour, whilst one example 

 was distinguished by its very dark colour. Borkhausen notes (Rhein. 

 Mag., i., p. 317) that specimens taken after the hard winter of 1789 

 were very pale, as were also those of Amorpha populi, and, as he bred 

 only white-grey Hyloicus pinastri that year from wild pupae, he thinks 

 the cause was climatic. 



a. ab. helioscopiae, Selvs-Long-champs, "Ann. Soc. Ent. Belg.," i., p. 40 

 (1857) ; Bartel, " Palaeark. Gross- Schmett.," ii., p. 88 (1899). Euphorbiae ab., 

 Staud., "Cat.," 3rd ed., p. 102 (1901). — M. de Selys donue cet nom a une variete 

 elevee de chenille a Halloy par un de ses fils et qui se distingue du type par 

 l'absence de bande noire antimarginale aux secondes ailes (Selys). Belgium : 

 Halloy ; France ; Germany : Dusseldorf ; Tuscany (Bartel). 



This aberration differs from the type in the failure of the outer 



