EREBIA LEFEBVREI, BDV., ON CANIGOU. 105 



Erebia lefebvrei, Bdv., on Canigou. {With ji re idates.) 



By T. A. CHAPMAN, M.D., F.E.S. 



Mr. Bethune-Baker has afforded me the opportunity of examining 

 a number of specimens of Krebia lefebvrei taken by him on the Canigou 

 in 1912. He remarked about them that it was practically impossible 

 to distinguish most of these specimens from E. welas from Greece. 

 Staudinger makes the same remark as to the form axtiiT in his Cataloi/. 

 (1901). To this I could only answer that I felt no reasonable doubt 

 that they were lefebvrei, and that they could hardly possibly be vielas,. 

 but must confess that I said this on the assumption that all Erebias 

 of this facies in the Pyrenees were E. lefebvrei, that I had not, how- 

 ever, examined the Canigou form, and that they might conceivably be 

 distinct, though almost certainly not welas. In the result of an exami- 

 nation of the 3 appendages and of the neuration, they agree absolutely 

 with E. lefebvrei and differ, of course, as absolutely as it does from E. 

 melas. 



I presume the reason Mr. Bethune-Baker referred the matter to 

 me was, that he has a sufficiency of other irons in the fire, as his 

 authority on matters of anatomical detail is unapproachable. 



I overhauled some of my specimens made some sixteen years ago, 

 and examined also the appendages of some of the lefebvrei from the 

 Canigou and also of astiir from the Picos de Europa. 



The appendages of lefebvrei c? present so much variation in the 

 armature of the clasps, and Mr. Clark has made such excellent photo- 

 graphs of many of them, that I cannot refrain from presenting figures 

 of some of these. (Plates VIII. -IX.) There is no doubt that many 

 times the number would not show any two precisely alike. I have 

 never met with an exact duplicate. I put with them photographs of 

 the appendages of E. acipio, and of E. pronoe, which species make the 

 nearest approach in this matter to A', lefebvrei. 



E. scijjio is very like E. lefebvrei, the shoulder of the clasp is less 

 prominent in reality, but is more so in so far that the body above it 

 is more slender. The head in E. scipio is rounded and surrounded by 

 spines, in E. lefebvrei it has a terminal larger spine, after the manner 

 so pronounced in E. xti/ijne. E. pronoe is very similar, it has the 

 terminal head spine like Ej. lefebvrei (and stygne), but the body and 

 shoulder of the clasp are much lower ; E. neoridas is almost identical. 

 To return to the relation of E. lefebvrei to E. melas, I am tempted to 

 quote the chapter on " Snakes in Ireland," and say there is none. In 

 vielas we have no .s(//r/»6-like spine on the head of the clasp and there 

 is no shoulder, it is represented by one very small spine, sometimes b}'' 

 a second, rarely by none, and then it is indistinguishable from nerine, 

 which sometimes has, more usually is without, this spine. In the 

 figure the more usual forms of the head are as in figs. 13 melas, 16 

 nerine, but melas fig. 14 ]S seen to have the spines on the head 

 disposed precisely as in nerine fig. 16, Plate XI. Nerine is, in fact, not 

 a distinct species, but a geographical race of inelas, more probably vice- 

 versa, but }iielas is the older name. 



The neuration in Erebia is tolerably uniform and there is nearly 



as much variation within the limits of one species as between distinct 



species. The difterence between lefebvrei and melas is slight, and not 



constant. In the photographs on plate XII. it is not easy to say there 



May 15th, 1914. 



