THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 93 



Anyone who has collected, and studied, and bred butterflies for years 

 will have ideas as to the limits of variation in each species, and he will 

 judge forms newly presented to him by those which he already knows. 

 The eastern Argynnids — seven species — show little variation except in 

 size, and it is only Cybele and Ap/irodite that show that, according as 

 they are northern or southern. The others are remarkably constant. 

 Neither of these species, whatever its variation, runs into another, or 

 approaches another. No one but a novice can possibly mistake one for 

 another. Judging by what I see of them, I do not expect to find 

 much variation in the genus elsewhere, and in fact if there are any variable 

 species in our fauna, they form the exception, not the rule. The 

 greater part are certainly as well defined as Aphrodite and Atlantis. I 

 believe all the 42 described species, unless perhaps Clio., to be good 

 species, constant to type, breeding true. Clio may turn out by breeding 

 to be a dimorphic form of Eurynome. I should be delighted to be the 

 means of proving it, but till it is proven, I hold it as separate. As to 

 Artonis, that it is distinct from Eury7ioine and Clio I have no doubt 

 whatever. I know it is found abundantly where Eurynome does not fly, 

 and of course it breeds to its own type. 



On page 535, in this remarkable statement, when speaking of the 

 Argynnides of all the world : " The difiiculties in this genus are not so 

 great as in Colias and Erebia, except in the species inhabiting the Rocky 

 Mountains and Pacific States of North America, which run into each other 

 in a most extraordinary manner. Most of the European species, though 

 closely allied, are fairly distinct, and I have only marked one species out of 

 America as doubtful.'^ So far as relates to all the world, then, except these 

 western districts of America, the rule I laid down holds good by Mr. 

 Elwes' own admission, that the several species of Argynnis vary only 

 within certain limits, and nowhere run into each other. 



Mr. Elwes had only to make sure of his American species, which he 

 could easily have done by seeing the original types, and he would have 

 found his rule held good universally. But ignorant of the types, he 

 started wrong, and trusting to what he calls authentically named speci- 

 mens, received from experienced collectors, together with his lack of know- 

 ledge of the preparatory stages, or of what are the most important features 

 of the imagos, he has landed where we find liim. 



