THE 
llaturaltats ’ I mintal 
A Monthly Medium for Collectors and Students of Natural History. 
Address of Office: 21, PROSPECT ROW, CAMBRIDGE. 
Vol. II. No. 23. MAY, 1894. Copyright. 
ON SOME VARIETIES OF BRITISH 
LEPSDOPTERA. 
By Albert H. Waters, b.a. 
No. 1. LI PARIS MONACHA , var. EREMITA. 
Fig I. L. moncicha , var. eremita. Drawn by A. H. Waters. 
t HE dark arches moth is by no means constant to any 
decided pattern of marking, and varies so much in this 
respect, that it is not easy to draw a figure representative 
of what is. or should be, the type form. One has only to 
compare the figures in the various natural histories of British 
moths, as, for instance, Newman’s and Stainton’s, to see this. 
Such being the case, we might expect to meet with many varieties 
of this moth. We have received from Mr. E. Edmonds, the well- 
known Windsor breeder of lepidoptera, a specimen of the beautiful 
melanic form, eremita, figured above and which he bred from parents 
captured in the New Forest. He obtains them by a process of 
selection ; pairing off the dark males with dark females. 
It must be noted that these dark specimens are purely British, 
although doubts have been expressed as to whether the black 
monacha occurs here. Mr. Edmonds informs us that he captured 
