21 
PAPERS READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY. 
THE VARIATION OF ENTEPHRIA CAESIATA.* 
(Read December 18th, 1906, by LOUIS B. PROUT, F.E.S,) 
In a paper published in the Entomologist two or three years ago, 
on “ Some Recurrent Phases of Variation in the Larentiida ,,” (Entom ., 
xxxvii., pp. 151-156), I briefly referred—amongst many other illustra¬ 
tions to two of the named forms of Entephria ( Larentia ) caesiata; 
the first, on page 152, as ab. < ylaciata , Germ., and the other on 
page 156, as ab. yelata, Guen. (misprinted “Germ.”). I was not at 
that time working at the variation of this species in particular, but I 
took it in hand very shortly afterwards, and soon discovered that 
Staudiuger had been “playing fast and loose” with the varietal 
nomenclature, in this as in some other cases. I shall show presently 
that the name ab. gelata is not possibly tenable for the form to which 
—following Staudinger—I applied it. ‘ Perhaps I shall be blamed for 
not having verified it from original sources before having made 
myself responsible for its use ; but while I hold, as strongly 7 as any 7 - 
one, that no revision of nomenclature should be undertaken without 
first-hand consultation of the entire literature involved, I would point 
out that general papers such as the one in question would hardly 7 ever 
get written at all, if it were not considered allowable to use the 
standard lists or reference works pending further revisions. However, 
as soon as I found that there were errors to be corrected, I determined 
to revise this interesting species as thoroughly as possible, and this 
evening’s contribution is a partial result. My interest in the subject, 
on other and more important aspects than that of nomenclature, has 
been continuously enhanced by the accessions of new material in my 
collection ; and although a certain amount of this has been acquired 
by purchase or exchange, y 7 et it is on occasions such as the present, 
when I am surveying an extensive series of some variable species, 
that I feel most keenly the magnitude of my indebtedness to such 
kind friends as Dr. Chapman, Messrs. A. H. Jones, H. Rowland- 
Brown, A. Bacot, and others, who so liberally make my collection a 
receptacle for Geometrides collected on their travels. 
* Entephria, Hb., Verz., p. 331 (1825?), Warr, Nov. Zool., xii., p. 332 (1905), 
type flavicinctata, Hb. ; = Glaucopteryx, Hb., 1. c., p. 332 (1825?), Pack., 
Monogr., p. 66 (1876), type caesiata, Hb.; = Larentia, [Tr. Schmett. Eur. v., 2, 
p. 440 (1825), non sect. typ .] Guen., Ur. et Phal. x., p. 266 (1858), type caesiata, 
Hb. ; — Aplocera, Stph., Cat. Brit. Ins., ii., p. 141 (1829), type caesiata, Hb. The 
true type of Larentia, Tr., is clavaria, Haw. (cervinata, Schiff.) as declared by 
Stephens in 1831 (III. Haust., iii., p. 210). Duponchel had in 1829 (Hist. Nat., 
vii., 2, p. 112) chosen dubitata, L., but this was invalid, not being in Treitschke’s 
original genus ; and before he had published his next volume (1830), containing a 
further revision of the genus, Stephens (Cat. Brit. Ins., ii., p. 129, 1829) had 
restricted it to four species, only three of them Treitschkian, namely clavaria, 
chenopodiata (=limitata ) and bipunctaria. 
