130 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



estimating the status of closely related forms. With fully representative 

 material of any two forms to compare, the pattern on the wings tells the 

 story, if the observer can read in the butterfly alphabet. The errors of 

 interpretation come chiefly from the primary fault of mistaking a contrast 

 between less and more for a diversity of like from unlike, or the reverse. 

 In frequent comparisons of Elis and Meadii, my chief effort has been to 

 ascertain the nature of the difference between them, and my resulting im- 

 pression is that Elis is a valid species, near as it is to Meadii. I do 

 not find an overlap of closely similar specimens uniting them, and the 

 two forms appear to have a somewhat diverse plan of pattern, a somewhat 

 dissimilar method of variation, indicating that they are travelling diff'erent 

 roads. They are, I take it, already a little different in kind, not merely in 

 degree. In comparing the nineteen Elis of the family above mentioned, 

 with the set of caught Elis, however, the difference is one which need 

 not be misread, even were the circumstances of origin unknown. It is a 

 difference large in amount, but not signifying alienation. The overlap 

 between the two series consists chiefly of a small proportion of males ; 

 several of the most finely developed of the caught set bemg about of the 

 same rank as several of the least developed males in the bred family. 

 Among all the caught females only one compares in size and fine develop- 

 ment with the average of the ten females of this family. Evidently, in 

 this signal advance in race character, the females showed more tendency 

 to depart from type than the males. All the females in this family except 

 one, and more than half the males, far surpass the average of caught set 

 as to breadth of dark borders, and it is a genuine progress, entirely free 

 from that erratic over-development of dark markings often occurring in 

 bred specimens ; in these specimens the effect is completely harmonious 

 and symmetrical. In this family there are two colors, both of males and 

 females. Four of the males are yellow-orange, the other five bright red- 

 orange, one of them very fiery orange. Eight females are of the red shade, 

 several being almost of as intense a shade as the most brilliant male ; the 

 remaining two are yellow, not so clear and light as the yellow-orange 

 males, but slightly tinged with ochre. The reddest males and females are 

 unlike any Meadii in my collection ; clearer red than any, and lacking 

 the burned-brick tinge of one very red female Meadii. Only two, both 

 females, of the caught Elis, are quite of this pure red-orange hue. The 

 caught Elis do not specially differ from Meadii in the color of disk above 

 primary, and are in general somewhat tinged with ochre ; one female is 



