32 
line often almost continuous (quite so in ab. undulata Strand). In 
our British examples, however, there is a very general tendency for 
the central fascia to be somewhat constricted or even semi-interrupted, 
and for the hastate mark to join the white band, and it is undoubtedly 
on these grounds that Guenee and his friend Doubleday refused to 
recognise them as true subhastata (vide Newman, loc. cit.), with the 
result that Cockerell imposed on them a new name, var. nigrescens. 
But my Finmark series and one from Lapland (Guenee’s own locality 
for subhastata) show how inconstant these points are, and var. 
nigrescens is at best only a subvariety. 
3. (var.) Chinensis Leech, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (6) xix., p. 570, 
189 l (wo evens Alph., Row. Mem., ix., p. 147, 1897).—Black, with very 
little white excepting the outer band (which is dotted with black) and 
an interrupted subterminal. I have only seen this variety from 
western China; it stands between hastata and var. (?) gothicata, the 
outer boundary of the central area showing more of the hastata 
contour than in gothicata and the Avhite band of the hindwings being 
broader and cleaner than in Guenee’s “ r/othicata var. A.” It seems a 
fairly constant form, but might easily lie approached (except perhaps 
in size) by chance aberrations of var. subhastata. 
4. (var. ?) Gothicata Guen. ( furcifascia Walk.)—“Wings black, 
the superiors with a strongly angulated white band .... often 
connected, between veins 3 and"4, with a triangular or sagittate sub¬ 
terminal spot” (Guenee). I have already discussed this form, and 
would only add that perhaps the fact that it presents such a different 
aspect from the other black var. ( chinensis ) lends some support to the 
idea that it is not strictly co-specific. I do not propose at present to 
give names to Guenee’s “vars.” (abs.) A and B. Ab. furcifascia 
Walk. (List Lep., xxv., p. 1294, 18G2) is a rather extreme form, with 
no white except the band of the forewings, but practically no black 
dots in this. 
5. (ab.) Demolita mihi, n. ab.—I would propose this name, 
without hair-splitting, for those occasional aberrations in which the 
central fascia has nearly disappeared, only persisting in small blotches 
round the discal spot (or more rarely a few dashes on the nervures) 
and at the inner margin. This phase of variation occurs chiefly in 
the typical hastata race (e.g., Barrett, Lep. Brit., pi. 336, figs. 1, lb, 
lc ; one from Edlington Wood, Doncaster, taken by Prest, and figured 
in Entom., xiv., p. 1, and a second from the same locality the next year 
kindly shown me several years ago by Mr. William Brady of Barnsley; 
one in Rev. G. H. Raynor’s collection recently exhibited in this room, 
and a second approaching it; a fine form bought by Mr. Sydney 
Webb from the S. Stevens collection; and one exhibited by Tugwell, 
vide Entom., xxv., p. 296); but it also turns up occasionally among 
var. subhastata, tw'o being figured by Schneider (Trows. Mus. Aars., 
xv., plate, fig. 4 b, 4c) and a somewhat similar phase mentioned by 
Gauckler (Ent. Nadir., xxv., p. 17), while one of Barrett’s figures 
(pi. 336, fig. lh) tends decidedly in the same direction. Schneider 
also figures (loc. cit., fig. 4 a) a strange-looking rayed example, which 
probably deserves naming separately. Some other forms with an 
increase of white, to which I find references in literature (Esthonia, 
“ smaller with more broken bands and more Avhite than ordinary,” 
Iluene teste Nolcken, Lep. Lawn. Estl., p. 270; Ala Tau, “a very large 
