39 
because it is much more natural to call the inner and outer areas 
the “ ground-colour ” than the central. 
IV«. Var. et ab. Argillacearia, Stgr. Cat., ed. 2, p. 166 (1871), 
—pullata, Dup. ( nec Hb.) =dilucidaria, Stph. (?), Wd., fig. 627, Gn., 
Robs, and Gard., = obscurata var., Mosley, fig. 3, Barr., pi. 305, fig. 1 g. 
—Sandy or almost reddish in colour, showing the nearest assimilation 
of which the species is capable to the bright red of our sandstone 
formations. Duponchel’s and Wood’s figures are not so bright as 
Barrett’s, or as my most extreme specimens; but I see no sufficient 
ground for separating them. 
IV6. Var. (et ab. ?) Zeitunaria, Stgr. Cat., ed. 3, p. 344 (1901).— 
Larger than the preceding ; wings dark grey, sprinkled with ochreous. 
This is a local race in the Taurus, and the Leech collection had a $ 
from Syria, where it is perhaps an “ aberration,” as his Syrian $ was 
comparatively normal, except in its large size. The rich mixture of 
dark grey with ochreous, combined with its large size, give the var. 
zeitunaria a handsome and striking appearance, and I have hitherto 
seen no British specimens at all like it. 
IVc. (?) Var. (?) Mordinaria, Stgr., Cat., ed. 3, p. 345 (1901).— 
This Asiatic form has also the colour of var. argillacearia, but its 
more deeply emarginate hindwings and some other peculiarities lead 
Staudinger to suspect that it may be a distinct species. 
In conclusion, for the sake of completeness, I must mention one 
named form which has been erected by Fuchs, but so unsatisfactorily 
that I have been unable to classify it, inasmuch as he does not limit 
it to any particular style of ground colour. It is the ab. (var. ?) 
bivinctata, Fuchs, Jahrb. Nass., liii., p. 53 (1900), and is characterised 
solely by the strongly pronounced transverse lines, the ground colour 
being said to vary. Fuchs has grounds for believing this strong 
expression of the lines to be characteristic of his district, but as this 
feature may appear in connection with almost any of the geological 
forms, I am at a loss to see how the name is to be used, unless it be 
as a mere qualification of the other names— e.g., ab. calceata-bivinctata 
would be a whitish form with the lines prominent ; ab. argillacearia- 
bivinctata, an argillaceous form with the lines prominent; and so on 
in all other cases. 
Postscript. —Since completing my paper, I have come across a 
strange note on this species by the late C. S. Gregson (Young Nat., vi., 
p. 277). As its object, like so many of its author’s contributions to our 
literature, was to prove somebody else in the wrong (namely, Lord 
Walsingham in his address to the “Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union ” in 
1885), a little discount will probably have to be taken off it, but still 
Mr. Gregson was such an observant and experienced field worker, that 
I make no apology for calling attention to it. He says : “It is quite 
new to me to hear [that] Gnophos obscurata assumes the colour of the 
soil or the objects which surround it. At Llanverris, in Wales, it is 
a most abundant insect, occurring 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 lichen grows on these rocks, and 
we are told it is because of it the insect has assumed this colour, etc., 
This must be a Lapsus calami for “ lead,” see the sequel. 
