l\\t €mdm\ llntatttaloflbt. 



Vol. XL. 



LONDON, FEBRUARY, 1908. 



No. 2. 



STUDIES IN THE GENUS INCISALIA. 



BV JOHN H. COOK, ALBANY, N. Y. 



V. — IXCISALTA POLIOS. 



Described in The Canadian Entomologist, Vol. XXXIX, Xo. 6, p. 204. 



When this species was named in June, 1907, the final snarl of a 

 nomenclatorial tangle of thirty years' standing was resolved into its con- 

 stituent threads. Incisalia polios is not a rare butterfly discovered by the 

 fortuitous capture of a few local specimens ; it is common in many places 

 near centres of entomological activity. Nor is it an obscure form, to be 

 separated from its congeners only after painstaking study ; it is marked in 

 a very characteristic manner, and is easily identified. In fact, it has been 

 mentioned in the literature several times either as a recognizable variety or 

 as a distinct species, but has always masqueraded under an assumed 

 name. 



Strecker^s fnisidentification. — In his Catalogue of Butterflies (1878), 



Herman Strecker listed the Hcnrici of Grote and Robinson as a variety of 



irus, Godart, characterizing it as '•' smaller '' and with the '• inferiors 



tailless." As I have already pointed out,' this characterization is 



erroneous, and does not apply to Hcuj-ici. It docs, however, apply to 



polios ; and that Strecker had an (at that time) undescribed species before 



him, which he misidentified as H-enrici. is proved by specimens of polios 



in h.is collection labelled Henrici. Evidently Strecker had never seen the 



type of Grote and Robinson's species (which is hardly to be wondered at 



in view of the strained relations existing between him and Grote), and 



how he came to make the error is not apparent. But that others have 



relied upon the accuracy of his determination, and thereby given life to the 



mistake, cannot be doubted. 



W. H. Edwards bred Hcnrici, and expressed his conviction that it 

 was a good species in 1881 (Papilio, I, j). 152). He placed it as such 

 in his catalogue of 1884, although in liis earlier catalogue (1877) it had 

 been given as a variety of irus. Fernald, C. H., in " The Butterflies of 

 Maine'' (1884), followed Edwards in separating ZTtv/r/V/ specifically from 



I. Canadian Entomologist, \'oL XXXIX, Xo. 6 (June, 1907), p. 182. 



