146 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



is found which agrees perfectly 7vith European Comma ; and, on the 

 other hand, that the existing differences appear to me of too little inport- 

 ance, and above all not sufficiently constant to make it possible on the 

 strength of these to declare the American forms specifically different from 

 Comma. Comma is in a liigh degree under the influence of various 

 external life-conditions, and, as both the American and the Asiatic forms * 

 prove, a species varying in different directions. Whether any one of these 

 local forms has already sufficiently established itself to be able to rank as 

 a distinct species, others, who are equipped loith more abundant materials, 

 will be able to decide luith more certainty than myself 



2. The insect No. 37, sent to me as Amblyscirtes Libya Scud., does 

 Dot belong to Amblyscirtes, and in general not to the group Pamphilinge, 

 but to Pyrginte. (On this point you will please compare my paper in the 

 Stettin Entomol. Zeitung for 1879, p. 484). It appears to me that it 

 would be best to include it in the genus Pholisora. 



3. No. 38 (labeled Pholisora Nessus Edw. =- Spilothyrus notabilis 

 Strecker) certainly stands most nearly related to the European species of 

 Spilothyrus Dup. (whose older name, Carcharodus, Mr. Edwards will 

 doubtless reject on principle as one of Hiibner's), but it deviates from 

 these in a few very essential points. The club of the antennas is not oval, 

 but much more slender than in the former, quite crescent-shaped as in 

 Nisoniades ; the outline of the wings is another point ; the primaries are 

 slightly rounded on the inner margin, somewhat incurved at cellule 16, and 

 projecting bluntly with their posterior angle, which has long indentations, 

 none of which is the case in Spilothyrus. The sharply indented second- 

 aries are distincdy incurved between nervules 4 and 6. The covering of 

 the body is close and smooth, not so hairy as in Spilothyrus, etc. If 

 several similar species should be discovered, these differences would 

 justify the erection of a separate genus; until then Nessus may stand with 

 Spilothyrus. The male will probably be furnished with a costal fold. 



As Spilothyrus differs from Pyrgus in nothing but the small transparent 

 spots on the wings and the strongly indented secondaries, I have not 

 separated the seven European species generically from Pyrgus (compare 

 Stettin Entomol. Zeitung, 1878, pp. 179 and 188), but have only char- 

 acterized them as its first group. Acquaintance with this American repre- 

 sentative would incline me to concede their erection into a genus. 



