URBICOLA COMMA. 157 



lean distinctly to the suffusa type. Oldaker notes that, at Kanmore, 

 some specimens are very light, others quite dark. Raynor observes {in 

 lift.) that he has a $ from North Kent with the outer margins of fore- 

 and hindwings much clouded with black and the androconial streak 

 much intensified ; he has also a 2 from North Kent with the central 

 areas of forewings and hindwings brightly fulvous, giving the whole 

 insect a very light appearance. It would appear that the range of 

 variation in Britain occasionally reaches ab. intermedia and ab. pallida- 

 puncta, but, possibly, the extreme pale form ab. clara, and the extreme 

 dark form ab. extrema, are only frequently to be met with in low 

 latitudes and high altitudes respectively, although an occasional pale 

 British one comes very near clara, e.g., we have two $ s from Cuxton 

 nearly of this form. On the underside the European forms vary in 

 the colour of the hindwings and apex of forewings from bright orange- 

 yellow, through yellowish-grey, grey, greenish-grey and bright green ; 

 some of the greyish and greenish forms have the anal area of the hind- 

 wing quite orange or orange-yellow, by contrast with the rest of 

 the surface, as in Adopaea flava. The white spotting, too, varies 

 considerably, not only in tint which extends from pure snow- 

 white edged with dark to increase the intensity of the white, to 

 a yellow almost lost in the ground colour and markedly obsolete 

 ( = ab. flava), but also in size and the amount of their separation. 

 It is to be noted also that, as a rule, the races that tend to have 

 the ground colour of the underside of the hindwings yellow, also 

 tend to have yellow spots, blending more or less with the ground 

 colour, whilst those that tend to green get intensely white spots, often 

 conspicuously edged with black. The outer of the white spots on the 

 underside of the hindwings, too, are sometimes united into a large zigzag 

 mark( = ab. conflua, n. ab.) ; and it is very common for the three forming 

 the lower part of the curve to be so united, the others remaining 

 separate. Oberthiir figures and describes {Etudes d'Entom., xx., pi. vi., 

 figs. 85-86, p. 38) two $ specimens (1) One with the hindwings beneath, 

 having the usual eight or ten ordinary submarginal and basal spots united 

 into one, so that only a pale yellow shade remains in the centre of the 

 white blotch; taken at Sologne = a,h.juncta, n. ab., and (2) One in which 

 the normal white spots are obliterated on the underside of the hind- 

 wings, and at the apex of the lorewings by being suffused with black 

 scales, only one small clear central whitish spot remaining in the 

 centre of the inferior wings ; believed to have been taken at Gavarnie 

 = ab. centripuncta, n. ab. The upperside of the first is normal, that of 

 the second is very dark. It is very rare that so completely united a 

 form as ab. juncta occurs. More frequently, as noted above, the outer 

 spots are united into a long zig-zag series, the central spots remaining 

 free ( = ab. conflua). Steinert notes an aberration in the " Seilercoll.," 

 in which, on the underside of the hindwings, the cells are filled up with 

 white to twothirds of the length, the white reaching furthest in cell 5. 

 Moeschler observes (Stett. Ent. Ztg., xv., p. 224) that $ s from south 

 Russia have most of the spots on the underside of the hindwings bordered 

 with deep black, as well as the spots at the apex of the forewings. 



The chief Palaearctic races divide into three groups — (1) The " pale " 

 or " clara " group, tending to clear, bright, yellow ground-colour, passing 

 through v&r. pallida (southeastern lowland form), var. flava (southeastern- 

 Europe mountain form), and var. dimila (south Asiatic mountain form). 



