168 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



lectors, who possess really good representative collections, and fine ex- 

 amples are to be seen in the National Museum of the Geological and 

 Natural History Survey of Canada, at Ottawa. 



The variations in the appearance of the live females in the Coliada; are 

 most puzzhng, and were it not for the similarity in the flight of several dis- 

 tinct forms of the same species, I fully believe the nomenclature of this 

 genus would be even larger to-day than it already is. I beg to call your 

 attention, as an example, to Collas Christina, Edw. 



The variations in size, in colour, and in the markings generally, are so 

 great, that had not several of the numerous forms been actually taken 

 in coitu, it would be hard to make a collector believe that they were one 

 and the same species. 



The females of Col. Christina, as far as my experience goes, may be 

 better compared to common "ribbon grass" than any other diurnal I have 

 come across — by which I mean to say, that as it is a difficult matter to 

 find two blades of grass exactly alike, so it is with the females of CoL 

 Christina. The shades run from a pale green (the colour of Actias luna,) 

 to lemon colour, and from lemon colour to bright orange, and the d''scal 

 spot on the primaries is almost obsolete in some, whilst in others great 

 uneven blotches of black or dark brown appear. When I captured this 

 species in very large numbers in 1883, whilst collecting for Mr. Henley 

 Grose Smith, of England, I was passing through what is known as the 

 Red Deer River country, about seventy miles from Calgary, in the 

 North West Territories. I was quite under the impression that I had 

 discovered a number of new species, and that I could on my return home 

 include a large proportion of my entomological acquaintances in descri- 

 bing and naming after them these peculiar butterflies. Imagine my sur- 

 prise, when after referring about twenty-five or thirty of these females to 

 Mr. W. H. Edwards, they all came back labelled Col. Christina, % . 



I now give a list of the different species of Colias with which I am 

 tolerably familiar, having captured specimens of each myself : 



C Christina, Edw., including southern form Astrca, Edw. 



^ quick of flight, like Eiirytheme, and difficult to capture ; 

 % short flights and slow of movement in the air. (Mr. W. H. 

 Edwards has already figured Col. Christina in his excellent 

 work on the butterflies of North America, but I have since 



