THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 187 



identity. That the two are very closely allied there can be no doubt, 

 occasional specimens being questionably separable even by colour. 

 Yet the general impression conveyed by a series, as well as the regular 

 occurrence of two broods oi eriphyle in this district, as against the capture 

 of (?7/r)'//z^w<? during one season only, clearly suggests two species. Mr. 

 Bean, whilst at Laggan, perhaps made at least as close a study of the 

 North American species of this genus as any man has yet done, and a few 

 years ago I had a short correspondence with him upon this point. He 

 wrote : " When I last studied the ezirytheme problem the status seemed to 

 be that in the north eiirytheme breeds true and eriphyk breeds true. But 

 the claim was made that in Colorado eggs of one form had sometimes 

 developed the other. I have often bred each form, and ?iever had mixed 

 results. It was necessary to use great care in gathering the plants, to 

 avoid smuggling in stray eggs, and there a doubt comes in as to the 

 occasional mixed results." The above is significant. The italics are 

 mine. 



75a. [C occidefitaiis, Scud. — The Lacombe specimens I referred to 

 under this name are without much doubt the same as the '•' pale lemon- 

 yellow form '' I mentioned under christina. To me, however, they aie 

 separable from true christina solely by colour, the variations, in both the 

 colour forms, of the discal spots and width and shape of border, being 

 enormous, and in the females almost unlimited, though from personal 

 observation of the two — one form being sometimes fairly common on days 

 when the other is scarcely to be seen — I should strongly suspect two 

 species. After my previous publication, Dr. Fletcher expressed a doubt 

 to me whether a yellow christina ever existed. My reference was based 

 on a letter received seven years previously from Mr. Bean, which I showed 

 Dr. Fletcher, and from which I now quote. As I mentioned above, I 

 accept Mr. Bean as being at the time one of the highest authorities on 

 Colias, particularly as he bred several species on a somewhat extensive 

 scale. He wrote from Laggan, discussing the opinion of a third person 

 to whom he had showed his enormous local collection: "I had shown him 

 a great series oi christina, bred and caught, ranging all the way from the 

 ultra orange forms of Assiniboia to the local extreme of unmarked white 



females and yellow males with no orange at all He admits 



himself puzzled by the very slightest one of all the difficulties christina 



presents, the colour variation, and that, although the unity of the colour 



forms has been fully established^ The italics are mine. I have a male 



