1885.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 25 



orange form, on another the spots enclosed by the border of 

 primaries are reduced to mere streaks and on the secondaries there 

 are no traces of the border at all. In all examples of both forms 

 there is a powdering of dark scales on the base of wings and along 

 the inner margin of secondaries interior to the abdominal fold. 

 Under surface as in the orange form, except that the orange of 

 superiors is replaced by yellowish white, and the green of all 

 wings is somewhat paler. 



Taken by Capt. Gamble Geddes at an elevation of 10,000 feet, 

 on the summit of " Kicking Horse Pass," in the Rock}- Moun- 

 tains, between Alberta Territory and British Columbia, at the 

 boundary between the United States and the British possessions, 

 about 300 miles north of Montana. 



It is an act of temerity to describe a Colias as new under any 

 circumstances in these da} r s, and doubly so to describe it from 

 examples of the female sex alone, yet I have no apprehension 

 that the above insect will not stand as a valid species. 



Capt Geddes took about fifteen examples, all females, nine of 

 the orange form, and about six of the white; but nothing that 

 could possibly be considered as the male. The other examples of 

 Colias captured in the same locality were lemon-colored males 

 and females probably of one species, and allied to Pelidne, but 

 bearing no kinship to the above. The most remarkable and dis- 

 tinctive feature of this G. elis is the white female ; as the species, 

 I am positive, will be found, whenever the male is discovered, to 

 belong to a group in which albinous females are unknown, its 

 congeners being Hecla, Hela Standingeri and Eogene, species in 

 which no instance of the pale female has yet been known to 

 occur ; all of which are found only at great altitudes or at the 

 North Polar Regions and are in the male distinguished from the 

 other red or orange species by the absence of the mealy kidney- or 

 oval-shaped spot on the upper surface of the costa of secondaries 

 near the body. 



It is curious, in regard to these albinous females of the Coliades, 

 that in one group thej- should occur in one species only, whilst 

 in another there should be but one species, C. Meadii, found also 

 at great elevation, in which they do not occur ; and in yet another 

 species, G. Vaidierii, of the same group with the last mentioned 

 Meadii, found in Chili, the female is always white, such a thing 

 as a red one being Entirely unknown. 

 3 



