26 
ON SOME HEREDITY EXPERIMENTS WITH COREMIA 
FERRUGATA, Linn. 
(Read Feb. loth, 1S98, by LOUIS 13. TROUT, F.E.S.) 
No doubt many of the membevs of this Society will recollect that I 
readhere, on March 24th, 1894, an exhaustive paper on the two species 
which have laid claim to the above name, that is to say, on the ('(ircinia 
fcrnii/ata and ( ’. /o/d/r/Um m of otir llritish lists. The jiaper in question 
was printed in full in our 'rransactimis for 1894, pp. 17-35 ; but in 
taking up one of the species for further consideration this evening, it 
seems necessary to recapitulate very briefly some of the results there 
arrived at. 
I first showed how abundantly distinct the two insects were, and 
how doubts on their specific right had originated solely through the 
existence of colour dimorphism in one of them, combined with certain 
apparent peculiarities in the operation of the laws of heredity, which 
still required further investigation. In other words, one of the species, 
the Ji'rniiiai ia of Haworth, has always a red or reddish median band ; 
in the other, the iiiiidrntaria of Hawortli { fcrnii/ata of Linne), the 
band is at times red, at times black, l)ut with this peculiarity, that 
“ the black forms hardly ever throw red in their progeny ” {!.<■., p. 26). 
On the following page, 1 remarked that “ the species will offer a very 
good field for experiments in pedigree hrecding, which I hope to take 
in hand.” These experiments have now proceeded far enough to be 
worth ])utting on record, and this is my only excuse foi' coming l)efore 
you with this paper to-night. All that has yet been i)ublished is a 
brief note on one or two of my broods, and supplied on the occasion of 
my exhibiting them at our conversazione on April 27th last {Traits. 
CiUj Loud. I'dit. & X. II. Soc., 4897, p. 18). 
In connection with the .synonymy, I showed that the difficulty 
arose from the very unsatisfactory nature of the type figure oi fen tajata 
(Clerck’s). I may add that nearly four years of further ex))erience, 
with periodic references to the figure in all the three copies of Clei'ck 
to which I have access, has not enabled me to decide which species he had 
before him, though in nature I have never met with a specimen whicli 
1 could not name. Either he had a very peculiar form, as yet unknown 
to me, or he figured it very badly ; or else it is what the (iermans call 
“l^hantasie-lhld,” made up from two specimens which C'lerck took for 
the same species but Avbich really ha})])ened to be one of each ! 'I’lie 
colour and lineation of the cential band are suggestive of siKidicran'a 
{our frn ii(iata), hnt tbe outer area and bind-wings seem certainly to 
indicate our iinidriitaria.''-' Professor Aurivillius kindly consented to 
look for a type in Clerck’s collection, wbicb still exists near Stockholm, 
but failed to find one. 
1 therefore ignore Clerck, as IMr. Meyrick has done in his Ilaiidhool,-, 
• Since writing tlic above I liavc noticed a worn .specimcMi of tins latter in one 
of iny boxes, in which the cential fascia ajiix-ars very much as in Clerck's figure; 
and if 1 had to fix upon one or the other species as the type of that figure, I should 
certainly choose this (iiiiideiilaria). 
