164 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA 



our butterflies as seem to me worthy of special note. In these days of doubt 

 as to the " origin of species," every trifling fact which can shed light on so 

 important a field of inquiry becomes of striking value, and it appears to me 

 necessary for all varieties which are apparently permanent to bear a distin- 

 guishing name, so that they may at once be recognized and hold their proper 

 plaice in our nomenclature. The following remarks will be, therefore, taken 

 at their true value, as I by no means claim that all of the forms described in 

 this paper should rank as distinct species, though future observations may 

 possibly elevate some of them to that position. 



Parnassius Clodius. Menetries. 



This species, like all of its genus, is liable to great variations, and there is 

 little doubt that some of its extreme forms have been described under other 

 names. Indeed, I am conscious of having unwittingly led Mr. W. H. Ed- 

 wards into the error of believing that our forms represented Clodius, Menetr., 

 and Glarius. Evers., and on my authority he has figured them as such iu his 

 ''Butterflies of North America." Subsequent observations, however, led me 

 to the conclusion that we had but one species, and the capture of some sixty 

 or seventy specimens in Bear Valley in 1873, gave me a long series of inter- 

 grades, in which both of the forms above alluded to were certainly included, 

 and with the knowledge that Smintlieus and Behrii were but variations of one 

 species, I could do no other than acknowledge the incorrectness of my former 

 opinion. Dr. Boisduval appears also to have once been led into the same er- 

 ror, and afterward to have rectified it, as he leaves Clarius out of the list of 

 species in his " Lepid. Calif., 1869." The clearness of the white ground, the 

 size of the colored spots, and the presence or absence of the red basal patches 

 of the under side, do not appear to constitute permanent characters, though 

 at first sight they would seem to indicate distinct specific relations, while the 

 size of the insect and the intensity of the colored patches seem to be modifica- 

 tions resulting probably from various altitudes, those of the less elevated re- 

 gions being usually most pronounced in color. It should be remembered that 

 Clarius was described by Eversman from specimens taken in the Altai Mount- 

 ains, Siberia, and, on the high authority of Mr. H. W. Bates, our " Califor- 

 nian specimens do not resemble at all Clarius of the Altai," so that we have 

 to blame Boisduval for introducing that species into our lists, instead of al- 

 luding to our extreme variations (as has been done in the case of Behrii) by a 

 new name. That they are worthy of such distinction there can be no doubt, 

 and I propose for perhaps the widest range of variety the following name, the 

 specimens from which the description is taken being in my own collection. 

 It must be borne in mind that this variety wanders considerably farther from 

 the type than that figured by Mr. Edwards as P. Clarius, Evers. : 



Parnassius Menetriesii. Hy. Edw. n. var. of Clodius. Menetr. 



Imago (J . Smaller than the typical forms of Clodius. Ground color of 

 wings, sordid white; semi-transparent margin rather narrow, with the white 

 lunules indistinct; the whole of the black marks of primaries are fainter than 

 in Clodius, and there is no black spot in the submedian interspace. The sec- 



