band is “ broad, and almost entirely black,” and none of the three mention 
any conspicuous ochreous colour in the outer area ; while the popular 
German name given, “ the black C,” referring to the C-shaped union of 
the “ twin spots,” is much more frequently applicable to unidentaria 
than to its ally, though both are very variable in this respect. 
In 1776, the Vienna Catalogue gave us spadicearia, “the oclire- 
brownish red-striped geometer,” which Fabricius, Illiger, and Treitsclike, 
take for a variety of ferrugaria, W. Y. Borkliausen’s spadicearia ( Eur. 
Schmet., Y. 190, 1794), is no doubt identical with this, and is certainly 
the extreme form of ferrugaria , Haw., of which I have examples from 
Dr. Staudinger, at the top of my second drawer. 
Borkhausen’s linariata, through a misunderstanding of Fabricius 
(who describes, not very fully, our “toad-flax pug”), is described as a 
very variable species, and is certainly either unidentaria or, comprehen¬ 
sively, both the allied species ; but the name is applied too generally to 
be even available as a varietal appellation. 
Esper figures ferrugaria, Haw. (Die Schmett. in Abbild., pi. 40, fig. 5) 
under the name of alchemillaria, which must be due to some misunder¬ 
standing, for he quotes De Geer, whose alchemillata is quite another 
species, namely didyrnata, L. 
Next Haworth (Lep. Brit. II., p. 308), not knowing Hufnagel's 
name corculata, rechristens the black species unidentaria ; he had ap¬ 
parently seen red forms of that species, but took them for varieties of 
ferrugaria ; for he describes ferrugaria var. /3 as “dirty reddish” with 
the band perfectly entire (i.e. not striated) and “ invenuste dolabriformif' 
the very expression he uses of the band of his unidentaria , while his 
other forms of “ferrugaria ” are distinctly to be separated from uni¬ 
dentaria by the band being “ nee invenuste dolabriformi.” The shape of 
band which is typical in unidentaria never, to my knowledge, occurs in 
ferrugarta, Haw.; though, unfortunately, that which is typical in 
ferrugaria is often nearly followed in varieties of unidentaria. 
Lastly, Staudinger in his 1861 catalogue burdened the synonymy 
with yet another name freyeraria, due to the announcement made by 
Freyer in his Neue Beitrdge, 1858, that there were two species which 
invariably bred distinct, and which Freyer figured as ferrugaria (black) 
and spadicearia (red); Dr. Staudinger had not seen Freyer’s sj)ecies 
and was also then ignorant of unidentaria, Haw.; consequently he 
accepted the black figure as ferrugata, but considering the name 
spaaiceavia, Bkh. pre-occupied by the “aberration” to which I have 
already referred, he had to re-name the red species (spadicearia, Freyer 
= ferrugaria, Haw.), and selected the name freyeraria. Between 1861 
and 1871 he made acquaintance with the unidentaria of our British 
authors, recognised that the equivalent of Freyer’s black figure (650. I.) 
and consequently sunk freyeraria under ferrugata, and erected unidentaria 
as a species. But as his type of ferrugata, together with those of most 
German and French authors, is what we know as “red unidentaria ,” 
it is not surprising to find Speyer (Stettin. Ent. Zeit., 1885, p. 93) and 
others declaring that unidentaria is “ only a variety of ferrugata ” since 
it has been bred from eggs of the latter. What many seemed to have 
failed to recognise is, that the “ ab. spadicearia ” of Staudinger’s 
Catalogue is really the distinct species from their ferrugata; though 
quite recently (1890) Gumppenberg (Syst. Geom. Zonae Temp. Septen., 
Theil iii.) has anew advocated their claim to be separated. 
