130 Tryon Reakirt on Color adian Butterflies. 



larged, as is usual in this sex, — although hut little more than in var. h, 

 and the blackish bar running thence to the three contiguous spots, 

 is represented on several of the male forms by indistinct traces, 

 and in var. b, is replaced by a whole surface of black atoms. The 

 pink spots of the secondaries find their analogues in ear's, a, d, e, f, 

 and /( ; var's. a, and (/, having this ocellation very prominent ; var. 

 f in a less degree, and in the two last, the coloration is of a uniform 

 pale tint, so that but two out of the eight aberrant male forms, present 

 purely crimson spots : we find the rudiments of '' a sub-marginal row 

 of black lunules," and the ' ; two small connected black spots" on the 

 abdominal margin in the var's. b, g, and e. In short, I cannot find a 

 so-called specific character in Sayii (Smintheus 9 ) which is not also 

 represented in the male of this species, either incipiently, or well- 

 marked, and viewing it in connection with a long series of Smintheus 

 % , I cannot do otherwise than regard it as the most normal form of 

 the female that has fallen under my observation. 



Var. a — -female — is a really much more extraordinary aberration, 

 differing from Sayii (Smintheus 9 ) ln the substitution of brilliant 

 crimson, for all white or pink spots; we have thus three large contigu- 

 ous spots running from the costa, and a large patch near the inner 

 border of the anterior wings; a large costal and a discal patch, the 

 latter enclosing a white dash, and three small contiguous spots, (the 

 central, the largest and sub-triangular.) forming a connecting line from 

 the discal patch to the anal angle, upon the posterior wings; all of a 

 pure bright crimson, encircled with black. On the under surface, 

 these are all reproduced, faintly upon the fore, vividly upon the hind 

 wings, on which they are also all very largely pupilled with white.* 



The shape of the pink or crimson spots varies through the following 

 degrees, — the variation not being confined to either sex — round, oval 

 obovate, sub-triangular, triangular, and sub-quadrate, and often times a 

 similarly situated and formed spot, has its position reversed in different 

 individuals — running transversely, or in an opposite direction. The 

 only apparently constant diagnostic, which I have detected in this 

 species, is the seemingly regular situation and form of the four basal 

 spots on the under surface of the secondaries : in these, it differs from 



* Since I wrote the diagnosis of Smintheus 9 var - a < I have received a speci- 

 men from Virginia City, Montana Territory, where it was taken in copula with 

 a male of the form var. n. so that there can be no doubt of its proper position, 

 or that I could, by a strange possibility, have mistaken a female of Nomion, for 



one of Smintheus. 



