VARIATION. 
267 
is a good and distinct sub-species, having nothing in common with the 
small specimens of festiva which are picked out from hundreds of the 
larger forms by our Scotch collectors, and distributed broadcast into 
our English collections as co?iflua. This error was due primarily to 
Newman, who treated this small race of festiva as a distinct species 
under the name of confiua in his British Moths ^ p. 394, erroneously 
supposing that these small festiva were Treitschke’s confiua. Of New- 
man’s so-called confiua^ Mr. Reid of Pitcaple writes : — “ There is no 
difference between the specimens sent out from Aberdeenshire festiva 
and confiua. Collectors pick out all the small specimens and call them 
confiua (because it is so in Newman’s British Moths ), and all the 
large ones and call them festiva. They (both large and small) occur 
together here in all localities, almost from the sea-level to several 
hundred feet above the sea” {in litt.). I have some two hundred 
specimens in my series from different localities in Scotland and England, 
and it is impossible to get from the mainland of Scotland, so far as we 
at present know, a single form that cannot be obtained occasionally in 
our Kent woods. Some of my smallest examples are from Kent, and 
some of my largest from Perth and Aberdeen. Of course, local 
environment causes some little difference in the appearance of such 
a common species, and a tendency to glaucous is more frequent in the 
Aberdeen and Darlington districts than elsewhere, the reddest specimens 
I have ever seen coming from Perth and Chattenden (Kent), widely 
distant localities enough. True festiva and our forms erroneously 
called confiua, in their reddest varieties are bright red, more like the 
red of bright Noctua rubi, but even brighter than the brightest of these, 
still there is none of the dull-brown colour in these festiva vars. that is 
characteristic of the true Icelandic and Shetlandic confiua, the reddest 
of which resemble somewhat in colour the red-brown type of yV. baia. 
These specimens, too, have a differently shaped wing as mentioned by 
Herr Hoffmann in his extract quoted below, and this is quite a constant 
character, whilst no Scotch confiua, so-called, exhibit this essential 
character, whatever their size. That the so-called confiua of Scotch 
localities are anything more than festiva, I fail to see, whilst, at the same 
time, I consider that the Shetland race is so far differentiated that it 
can be at once separated from any forms oi /estiva known. I treat, 
therefore, all our English and Scotch festiva as such, dropping altogether 
Newman’s erroneous use of the name conjiua, and at the same time 
treat our Shetland specimens as a distinct sub-species under the name 
of confiua, Tr. Those who have not the Shetland sub-species will of 
course find it difficult to follow out the intricate muddle that has been 
woven round this species, but I believe I can safely say that in no part 
of the mainland of Great Britain has the confiua of Treitschke been 
taken, and although undoubtedly some of our festiva may to a small 
extent superficially resemble some of the forms of the allied sub-species, 
there can be no possible doubt in determination. Of the true co 7 ifiua 
in Iceland, Dr. Mason writes : — “Very abundant and variable ; this was 
first described as a species from Icelandic specimens, and differs from 
the form usually called N. festiva var. confiua in British collections from 
its smaller size; the only British specimens of this form which I have 
seen were taken by the late John Sang, at Wolsingham in Northumber- 
land ” {Efit. Mo. Mag., xxvi., p, 198); whilst we also read: — “The 
