SPHINX LIGUSTRI. 299 



last 20 joints, the $ fairly regularly, the $ slightly till about the 8th or 

 9th joint from the end, then more rapidly ; the hair-pockets on those of 

 the $ are well-developed ; in both sexes there are two obvious and one 

 half concealed rows of scales to a joint. The 1st tibial spur is 2*9111111. 

 long in the $ , 2*5 5mm. in the $ , and they differ proportionally in other 

 dimensions, but not apparently structurally. The hair scent-organ 

 in the $ occupies the usual position below the 2nd abdominal spiracle, 

 and is a not very large bundle of hairs about 3'3mm. long (Chapman). 



Teratological examples. — (1) A specimen, bred at Walthamstow 

 in June, 1877, had perfect forewings but was without hindwings or any 

 trace thereof (Cooper, Ent., xi., p. 70). (2) The forewings bluntly 

 rounded, instead of lanceolate, the outer margin less oblique, &c. Both 

 forewings alike, &c. (Freyer, Neu. Beit., iv., p. 39, pi. 313, fig. 1). 



Variation. — There is considerable variation in the colour of 

 this species and albinistic and melanochroic specimens are occasion- 

 ally obtained. We have an example from the " Coverdale collection," 

 in which all the usual pink parts of the wings and the body are 

 almost white (=ab. albescens, n. ab.). Schultz notes (III. Woch. 

 fur Ent., ii., p. 706) a $ with partially albinistic hindwings. 

 Pfiitzner describes (Iris, x., 1, p. 160) an interesting albinistic 

 aberration caught in June, 1895, at Sprottau, in which the 

 whitish markings at the apex of the forewings are more vivid 

 than usual and the red of the hindwings has disappeared as far as the 

 hairs at the base which show a faint tinge of this colour ; the ground- 

 colour is a dull bone-white, almost as in S. drupiferarum from North 

 America ; in contrast to the lack of red in the hindwings the abdomen 

 has the transverse spots of a very intense red. Holland notes 

 two examples reared at Reading (and now in the Reading Museum 

 collection) in w~hich the pink colour of the hindwings and the 

 abdomen is replaced by yellowish, these parts being of a pale 

 lemon-colour when the moths first emerged ( = ab. lutescens, n. ab.). 

 In the Briggs' collection, sold in 1896, was an exceedingly dark 

 aberration in which the forewings, as well as the hindwings and 

 abdomen, were all much suffused with black, the forewings with 

 the inner margin black, the black coloration passing upwards from 

 the anal angle to the costa just outside the subterminal line, the 

 hindwings with three very marked black bands (Ent. Pec., ii., p. 141) ; 

 this example was bred in the London district (Proc. Sth. 

 Lond. Ent. Soc, 1891, p. 125) (=ab. obscura, n. ab.). Griffiths 

 records the capture of a dark aberration at Stapleton in which 

 the usual dark dorsal line was quite obliterated, whilst Manley 

 records two specimens with the central band of the body quite 

 black, the wings also suffused with black. Bartel observes 

 (Pal. Gross-Schinett., ii., p. 47) that, in southwest Siberia, specimens 

 that form a transition to var. amurensis, and in which the red is 

 much paler and the black richer and much deeper than in any Central 

 European examples, are to be found, whilst he adds that, in Japan, 

 where the species is common, it is almost like the European form. 

 A study of the examples in the British Museum coll. shows that there 

 is a considerable amount of colour-variation in the species. In some, 

 the ground-colour of the forewings is whitish, with the dark areas 

 black, the shading of the paler areas inclining to clear grey, the paler 

 coloration of the pink parts of the hindwing being also sometimes 



