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nisecl his insect in a figure of Degeer’s, of a geometer bred from an 
Alchernilla larva (really, I believe, Larentia didymata), and chose a 
name accordingly; but his description was not drawn up from Degeer’s 
figure. Another synomym, nassata, Fb. ( Mant. bis., ii., p. 212), is not 
quoted in the present edition of Staudinger, yet has had a certain 
degree of usage, namely by De. Villers, Haworth and Stephens olim 
(1829). Curtis, on the other hand, from the first preferred to use 
rivulata, Hb., for this species, while Doubleday, in his first “ Synonymic 
List” (p. 18), erroneously identified our small rivulet with hydrata, 
Tr. I think these are all the synonyms known in connection with this 
species ; the nomenclature of it and the preceding were finally set 
straight by Guenee in 1858. 
P. alchemillata shows a good deal of minor variation, but I know 
of no legitimately named form, unless fennica , Reuter, described above, 
be referable here. Var. '''fennica, Peters. ( Nassata , Haw., p. 385) 
with the inner rivulet band recognizably defined*, is hardly more 
than an aberration in Britain, though I fancy more general in 
Scotland than in the south of England. I have bred many of the 
species from Sandown, without getting more than one or two examples 
of it, and even they are not at all extreme ; whilst three of my four 
Scotch specimens belong to it (Muchalls, Forres, Paisley), and the 
fourth (Forres) approaches it. In my experience, the increased 
expression of the inner white band is accompanied by a widening of 
the outer, and a slight increase in the distinctness of the pale band on 
hindwings. On the other hand, I have one Sandown specimen almost 
unicolorous, with merely a white spot on the inner margin to represent 
the inner band, an extremely narrow outer band somewhat clouded 
over in its central part, and an ill-defined subterminal. There is also 
some variation in the ground colour in this species, the usual rather 
bright brown being occasionally replaced by a somewhat darker and 
greyer brown. 
The moth may readily be beaten from hedges by day, or netted at 
dusk. At Muchalls, at the beginning of August, 1902, I netted two a 
little before 9 p.m. at honeysuckle flowers, when working for Plnsia 
braceta. That was an exceptionally backward season, and the species 
generally emerges in June or early July; but both it and its ally P. 
ajfinitata (cfr. Stange, Stett. Ent. Zeit., xlvii., p. 280), seem to have a 
protracted emerging period. I have never found the larva on any 
plant but the common hemp-nettle ( Galeopsis tetrakit), on the seeds of 
which it may generally be obtained in profusion in August and the 
beginning of September. Other foodplants have been recorded, some 
without doubt correctly, and I intend to search them, with a view to 
personal variation. Galeopsis ladanum is readily accepted in captivity ; 
and — much more strangely — I have had the larva; take to the common 
toad-flax, Linaria vulgaris. I believe the Scrophulannae have some 
affinity with the Labiatae, which furnish all its natural foodplants ; 
* The inner fascia is traceable in Hiibner’s figure of rivulata (fig. 259), but not 
white,'except at inner margin (compare also rivularia, H.-S., fig. 289); in any case 
we could not substitute “ var. rivulata ” or “ var. nassata ” for “var. fennica ” — 
(1) because Schiffermiiller’s rivulata is not known to have had the inner fascia; 
(2) because Fabriclus (Mant., ii., p. 212) changed the name to nassata to avoid 
homonymy, and his description (like Linne’s of alchemillata) , also gives only one 
white fascia. 
