1892.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 157 



ginal border the row of spots is obscure cream color. Fringes of all 

 the wings milk white. Undersides : Superiors nearly the same color 

 and maculation as above but with a yellow tinge. Inferiors light 

 olive-green dusted with gray. This is very different from the rich 

 grass-green underside of the normal form. The spot in the cell has 

 less red around it and is more silvery than in the yellow female. 

 It would more properly be called the dimorphic white female form 

 and is pi'obably the prettiest form of American Colias. 



Lycaena aquilio Boisd, 

 Three specimens. 



NYMPHALIDiE3. 



Argynnis chariclea Schneid. 



Quite abundant and many of them in good condition. Among 

 them were a few specimens of what Mr. M'Lachlan called var. 

 obscurata (Proc. Linn. Soc. Vol. 14, p. 109). This form was figured 

 in Eut. News, Vol. 3, pt. 3, pi. 2, figs. 9, 10. Mr. M'Lachlan, in the 

 paper above referred to, says : " Under this head (chariclea) I feel 

 compelled to group 20 examples. Never before have I been so 

 perplexed over a series of an insect of which I had made a serious 

 study. I may safely say that no two of the twenty individuals are 

 precisely alike. It would be utterly useless to attempt to describe 

 the forms ; the only thing that could be of service would be to give 

 colored figures of both sides of nearly every example." If we had 

 had a few specimens representing the extremes of variation in this 

 species we would probably have described two or three new species, 

 but having a good series with all the mutations represented we can 

 only conscientiously call them A. chariclea. This is a case where 

 breeding a large number from the eggs of several known females would 

 solve the problem so far as the examples of a given area are con- 

 cerned, but we think some entomologists attach too much importance 

 to this kind of proof in other directions. A thousand specimens 

 of the Greenland form of A. chariclea might be bred without find- 

 ing one that agreed with the European form ; yet this would be no 

 proof of their being valid species if all their geographical inter- 

 grades could be found. This species was stated by Doctor Hughes 

 to also mimic its surroundings, as, unlike C. hecla, it rarely alighted 

 on the herbage but on the ground and i-ocks which it more nearly 

 resembles in color. 



