E. B. WILLIAMSON 
237 
to be carnatica. Similarly grouped under the pin label carnatica 
are three males and two females which also are curna/fca, except 
one rather teneral female with only the pin label “Cuba,” which 
is proliably maria. Among the Protoneurae i\Ir. Kennedy found 
another specimen which is really maria. This siiecinien is 
shrunken as though teneral, or originally preserved in alcohol. 
It had the abdominal color (nine and ten Idue above) mentioned 
by de Selys as separating carnatica from maria {maria was known 
to de Selys only from Scudder’s description), carnatica having 
nine largely Idack above. Inferring that this specimen was 
teneral, and detecting no structural differences I decided that 
maria and carnatica were ontogenetic stages in one species. 
However, I have later had the pleasure, through the kindness of 
]\Ir. Kahl, of studying the four males and one female of maria 
recorded by him from the Isle of Pines, the locality of Scudder’s 
types. I am still unable to find structural differences for 
separating the two species, in fact the appendages are identical 
to the smallest detail, and yet I am compelled to consider them 
two species, in spite of this and the identical and iieculiar color 
pattern of the head and thorax, foi- the red of carnatica and the 
blue of maria are certainly not ontogenetic (the Carnegie iMuseum 
female was taken in copulation with one of the four males and 
the material is certainly quite as mature as some of the red speci- 
mens in the Hagen collection). Aloreover, the difference in color 
pattern of the apical abdominal segments is constant, one pattern 
always associated with red coloration, the other pattern associ- 
ated with blue coloration, and there is no ground for thinking 
that this pattern can be ontogenetic. It may be suggested that 
the position here taken, and also with reference to ethela and 
S7jlvatica, is not consistent with the position taken with reference 
to the different color forms considered one species under rubri- 
ventris. In the last case Init one specimen of the divergent form 
is known (this is true also of ethela, see discussion under that 
species), while we have in the case of maria and carnatica, a 
considerable series of each. Moreover, in rubriraitris the two 
extremes, strikingly different as they are, may reasonably lie ex- 
pected to be bridged when larger series are available. If such 
connecting forms are not discovered, when the species is better 
i^AiiiiaP Carnegie Museum, Vol. x, p. 521, (1916). 
TRAN’S. AM. ENT. SOC., XLIII. 
