Insects, 



0343 



in copula ; in short our observations made on the spot leave not the 

 least doubt about the matter. 



The abdomen is the least variable in its colour, which is ash-gray, 

 sometimes with a shade of yellow. The thorax is much more variable, 

 frequently gray with two dark stripes on the shoulders. But it is 

 nearly black in black varieties, whitish in the light-coloured ones, 

 yellow or brown in others, and often it becomes of a variegated mixture 

 of different colours. The head in its different parts varies like the 

 thorax. The tongue always remains yellow-brown. The antennae of 

 the male are slightly serrated, and beset with a double row of short 

 hairs. The hips, thighs and tibiae are mostly gray ; tarsi darker, the 

 end of each joint annulated with brighter colour. The colour of the 

 spurs on the tibiae is very varied. 



It is scarcely possible to determine the normal characters of the 

 fore wings, but the ordinary ground-colour may be considered to be a 

 gray black with a shade of brown or ferruginous, and the usual 

 markings to be four transverse lines, one of them at the base, two en- 

 closing the centre, and one on the outer margin ; the colour of these 

 lines is generally dingy yellow-brown. The round and reniform stig- 

 mata are filled in more or less white or yellow. The ribs are also 

 white. The claviform stigma is rarely clear, but still more rarely is it 

 particularly coloured. The outer transverse line (which is sometimes 

 wanting) is either regularly toothed or bears two M-formed projecting 

 teeth. Frequently the whole portion exterior to the third transverse 

 line is of a uniform dark colour. The same thing sometimes occurs 

 before the second line, in which case the middle of the wing is pale, 

 making the var. b. The var. a., in which the transverse lines are 

 white and the ground-colour nearly black, is scarce. Sometimes the 

 black, white and yellow colours proceed very clearly through each other, 

 being the var. c. In one specimen the fore wings are dingy yellow, 

 sprinkled all over with black atoms, and a dark transverse outward 

 line, var. d. ; where the ground-colour is also yellow, but the markings 

 are very white, we have var. e. ; in one example nearly the whole of 

 the costa is white. The varieties with the fore wings entirely pale gray, 

 and only the transverse lines and the circumference of the stigmata 

 slightly dark, are particularly marked out as var./. The same holds 

 with those having the ground-colour rusty, var. g., and intermediate 

 gradations are not wanting here. In one male the fore wings are 

 almost entirely of a uniform ochreous, var. h. In another they are 

 almost copper-red, with dark lines, and only on the ribs white. Many 

 specimens are dark rusty, and the outer margin and both stigmata 



