THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



»77 



upon the new red) so Hoy insects do not differ much from ours, or the insects 

 of the adjacent lands, or the other islands. The Outer Hebrides and Shet- 

 land are not old red. so having fed for ages upon plants winch have 

 drawn their sustenance from a different composition the insects differ. 

 The first illustration that occurs to me is Dia?ithcecia carpophaga, fed on Silene 

 maritima, growing on the shore amongst the shingle, from Clontarf nearly to 

 Dolly Mount, Ireland, produced me very dark specimens, but with a decided 

 ochreous tendency ; whilst larvae collected the same day, feeding on the same 

 food-plant which grew on quartoize and early rocks, produced me rich dark 

 variety Capsophila without a trace of ochre upon them, and some bred from 

 plants growing amongst igneous rocks at Scarlet, Isle of Man, produced 

 variety capsophila with a beautiful purple blush over the dark ground. Again 

 Acidalia contiguaria, captured in Wales, feeding on low plants, as light 

 coloared when bred as it is figured in " Entomologists' Annual," for 1856, 

 under the name of Deburnata. Specimens bred upon growing plants 

 of Galium vulgaris, carted from Bisby Moss by an old friend (Noah Green- 

 ing) year after year became dark smoky insects, every specimen being fumose 

 varieties. Eisby Moss is far away from any smoke, and the food was always 

 washed and kept under cover, and each year they became perceptibly darker. 

 It is such experiences as these that induces me to say — Read all that is said 

 on the subject of the probable causes of a tendency to variation in any latitude 

 but use your own judgment if your friends get off the line. I must confess 

 I know little of the insects of high latitudes, Britain does not extend to 61° 

 north, and I hardly call 60° north, high. If I were attempting to controvert 

 Lord Walsingham's paper (which I am not) I should in justice have to argue 

 the various points, I have no desire to do so, but I think it well to remind 

 our young friends that it is quite new to me to hear " Gnophos obscurata 

 assumes the colour of the soil or the objects which surround it." At Llan- 

 verris, in Wales, it is a most abundant imsect, occuring all over the district 

 as a red coloured insect on emergence ; exposed to the sun as it often is on 

 the rock faces near the Loggerheads, it is very soon a faded light drab, no 

 blue lead colour is left, yet a blue lead coloured litchen grows on 

 these rocks, and we are told it is because of it the insect has assumed this 

 colour, &c, forgeting that all through the district they assume the same 

 colour, though there are no rocks exposed, or blue lichen for them to copy 

 for miles around. Again, at Bidston Hill in Cheshire this species is a very 

 black insect ; this range of hills are white sandstone covered by ordinary 

 heath plants. I have read his Lordship's carefully prepared paper with much 

 interest, but I am not yet convinced that what is called a tendency to melanism 

 is explained by supposing the dull days of Northern latitudes, or the dull 



