53 
had begun to grow in that position, when the seeds had commenced to 
develop. Mr. Tutt: Ernydia cribrum from the New Forest, and for com¬ 
parison its var. Candida , taken by himself and Dr. Chapman, near 
Courmayeur, on the Italian side of Mont Blanc. Mr. Prout: Tryphaena 
subseqaa, from Sandown and the New Forest; also Noctua c-nigrum, 
Aporophyla australis (with dark vars.) and Caradrina ambigua, from 
Sandown. Mr. Prout read the following notes :— 
On Caradrina ambigua from Sandown. —“ As the species exhibited 
to-night has already been recorded as C. superstes, it seems desirable to 
say a few words in explanation of my present announcement of it as 
C. ambigua. I am inclined to doubt whether our two British forms, 
that have been hitherto supposed to be, the one C. ambigua, and the 
other C. superstes, are distinct, indeed from what has come under my 
notice I feel sure they are not. It will be remembered that Mr. Tutt 
in 1889 ( Entom ., vol. xxii., p. 235), recorded the Isle of Wight speci¬ 
mens as C. ambigua, but in 1891 (Brit. Noct., vol. i., p. 118) he introduced 
C. superstes as also British, and referred the Freshwater specimens to 
the latter species. Looking at Herrich-Sckaeffer’s figures last Saturday, 
I felt no doubt that the insect I had taken at Sandown, and had received 
from Mr. Hodges from Guernsey, was the one there figured under the 
name plantaginis = ambigua; but, in order to get further light on the 
subject, I, this morning, visited the Natural History Museum, and ex¬ 
amined the specimens from Zeller and Frey, which are in the collection 
there. These agreed with the testimony of Herrich-Schaeffer and all 
the other Continental authors, in that the more testaceous species was 
labelled C. ambigua, the more ochreous one C. superstes — exactly re¬ 
versing Mr. Tutt’s differentiation (Ent. Bee., vol. iv., pp. 98-9). But 
C. superstes has the stigmata and the rows of transverse spots darker 
than in the figure ( l.c., No. 2, pi. c, fig. 1), of Mr. Tutt’s Deal example, 
so that I suspect that even that is only a variety of the Continental 
ambigua. The true C. superstes has also a very distinct row of black 
spots on the margin of the fore-wing. Another little point that is not 
without significance is, that Fuchs, who knew both species well, and 
had reared C. superstes from the egg, says ( Stett. ent. Zeit., vol. xlv., 
pp. 261, et seq.) that C. superstes is single-brooded, and occurs contem¬ 
poraneously with C. taraxaci in July, being worn by the middle of 
August, while C. ambigua is double-brooded, the 2nd brood being about 
from August 20th, on into September. This latter date agrees accurately 
with the time of appearance of most of our British examples.” 
Mr. Tutt, after referring to the original articles in the British Noduce 
and their Varieties, said that Mr. Prout’s statement as to the more 
ochreous species being C. superstes and the gre} T er one C. ambigua was 
perfectly correct, and that this differentiation agreed with that in the 
British Noduce, &c., Yol. i.; the names were transposed in the Plate (c), 
and also in the short account of the species (Ent. Bee., iv., pp. 98-9). 
It was, of course, quite possible that Mr. Prout might be correct in 
uniting the two forms, but without going fully into the matter, he did 
not think the two forms as described in The British Noduce, &c., were 
other than two distinct species, nor did he much doubt but that they 
were identical with the two European species. The matter, however, 
would have to be looked into. One thing was evident, and that was, 
that on the differentiation of the species, as proved by the original type 
