ART. 11 COMMOX OLD WORLD b vVALLOWTAIL BUTTERFLY CLARK 5 



that whether the specimen figured by HoHaiid really came fi'om 

 Alaska or not is an interesting point for collectors to clear up; if 

 it be correct, then there would be two distinct forms of iiiachaon 

 in our northern fauna differing in the relative width of the black 

 submarginal band on the secondaries. 



In the second edition of " The Butterfly Book." published in 1931. 

 Doctor Holland republished the figure giyen in 1898, designating it 

 as " type " of Papilio aliaska. In the text he said that it is one 

 of the '' types " determined by Scudder, and that it was taken at 

 Rupert House on Hudson Bay. It is, therefore, the specimen that 

 Scudder said had been sent him by Edwards. It can not be regarded 

 as the type specimen of nliasl-a, since in the first place the oi-iginal 

 description fits only the specimens from Nulato and the Ramparts, 

 and in the second place it was only incidentally mentioned by 

 Scudder. 



Doctor Holland said that he has another " type " from Scudder's 

 original material labeled as from " Alaska," which exactly agrees 

 with Verity's figure of his joannisi. He remarked that the Carnegie 

 Museum has a specimen taken on the peninsula of Labrador, on 

 the eastern shore of Hudson Ba5^ which is the same. He added 

 that the Carnegie Museum has a long series of specimens from " all 

 parts of Alaska," whicli are " unmistakably the same thing." These 

 specimens, he said, had been carefully compared with specimens 

 from northeastern Siberia labeled orientls by Verity, and they were 

 indistinguishable from the latter. He remarked that in the long 

 suite of specimens that he h;id critically examined the only dilfer- 

 ence is an almost inappreciable variation in the width of the black 

 outer margin of the fore wings, which is only individual, and 

 reveals itself both in American and in Asiatic specimens. He said 

 that the insect, as the figure shows, resembles P. ni. macliaon of 

 Europe, but the yellow areas of the wings are not so wide as in the 

 latter. 



For some time Foster H. Benjamin had been aware of the 

 very considerable differences between Alaskan and Hudsonian speci- 

 mens of Papilio macliaon^ and he recently v/as so kind as to suggest 

 that I look into the matter on the basis of the material in the Nat- 

 ional Museum, including the Barnes collection. 



From the available material Papilio machaon appears to be repre- 

 sented in North America by three different forms : One in the region 

 between southwestern Hudson and James Bays and Lake Superior; 

 a second — Scudder's aliaska — in Alaska and the adjacent portions 

 of Yukon and Mackenzie; and a third, closely resembling the first, 

 also occurring in Alaska. 



The eastern form and the very similar form from Alaska are 

 described below. 



