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remarkable connection between this and the small race, erroneously 
known as confluci , which is captured on the moors of North England and 
in Scotland, together with the occurrence of the true confluci (agreeing 
exactly with Icelandic specimens) in the Shetland Isles with festiva , 
make this one of the most interesting of our Nocture. 
The small form of festiva , generally known as conflua in Britain and 
on the Continent, is not the conflua of Treitschke, which represents the 
Shetland and Iceland form lately introduced into our lists as var. thulei. 
I have not the remotest doubt that this true Iceland and Shetland conflua 
is a good and distinct sub-species, having nothing in common with the 
small specimens of festiva which are picked out from hundreds of the 
larger forms by our Scotch collectors, and distributed broadcast into 
our English collections as conflua. This error was due primarily to 
Newman, who treated this small race of festiva as a distinct species 
under the name of conflua in his British Moths , p. 394, erroneously 
supposing that these small festiva were Treitschke’s conflua. Of New¬ 
man’s so-called conflua, Mr. Reid of Pitcaple writes:—“There is no 
difference between the specimens sent out from Aberdeenshire as festiva 
and conflua. Collectors pick out all the small specimens and call them 
conflua (because it is so in Newman’s British Moths), and all the 
large ones and call them festiva. They (both large and small) occur 
together here in all localities, almost from the sea-level to several 
hundred feet above the sea” (in lift.). I have some two hundred 
specimens in my series from different localities in Scotland and England, 
and it is impossible to get from the mainland of Scotland, so far as was 
at present know, a single form that cannot be obtained occasionally in 
our Kent woods. Some of my smallest examples are from Kent, and 
some of my largest from Perth and Aberdeen. Of course, local 
environment causes some little difference in the appearance of such 
a common species, and a tendency to glaucous is more frequent in the 
Aberdeen and Darlington districts than elsewhere, the reddest specimens 
I have ever seen coming from Perth and Chattenden (Kent), widely 
distant localities enough. True festiva and our forms erroneously 
called conflua , in their reddest varieties are bright red, more like the 
red of bright Nodua rubi, but even brighter than the brightest of these, 
still there is none of the dull-browm colour in these festiva vars. that is 
characteristic of the true Icelandic and Shetlandic conflua, the reddest 
of which resemble somewhat in colour the red-brown type of N. baia. 
These specimens, too, have a differently shaped wing as mentioned by 
Herr Hoffmann in his extract quoted below, and this is quite a constant 
character, w T hilst no Scotch conflua , so-called, exhibit this essential 
character, whatever their size. That the so-called conflua of Scotch 
localities are anything more than festiva, I fail to see, whilst, at the same 
time, I consider that the Shetland race is so far differentiated that it 
can be at once separated from any forms of festiva known. I treat, 
therefore, all our English and Scotch festiva as such, dropping altogether 
Newman’s erroneous use of the name conflua, and at the same time 
treat our Shetland specimens as a distinct sub-species under the name 
of conflua , Tr. Those who have not the Shetland sub-species will of 
course find it difficult to follow out the intricate muddle that has been 
woven round this species, but I believe I can safely say that in no part 
of the mainland of Great Britain has the co?iflua of Treitschke been 
taken, and although undoubtedly some of our festiva may to a small 
