170 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



When about eighteen days old, the eyes begin to deepen in colour. 

 and the wings gradually assume an opaque-yellowish hue which very 

 gradually becomes quite opaque and of a deep cream colour, and the 

 thorax brown ; the abdomen by slow degrees turns duller, and the 

 wings deepen into leaden-grey, and finally show the colouring of the 

 imago. 



The pupa having no ciemastral hooks is unattached to anything, it 

 rests on the surface of the ground surrounded by strands of silk 

 forming a very slight cocoon-like structure, spun to fallen leaves or 

 other suitable objects which partly form a covering. The anal 

 segment remains embedded in the cast larval skin, the hairs of which 

 as well as those of the pupa become entangled in the silk. 



A larva which pupated on May 28th produced a male imago on 

 June 26th, and another which pupated on May 29th produced a female 

 butterfly on June 27th, the pupal state lasting for twenty-nine days. 



Note in Answer to Dr. Jordan's, IMr. Bethune=Baker's and the 

 Rev. G. Wheeler's Observations on my "Revision of the 

 Linnean Types of Pala£arctic Rhopalocera." 



By ROGER VERITY, M.D., F.E.S. 



Having read Dr. Jordan's note concerning my paper on the Linnean 

 types of Pabvarctic Rhopalocera, I wish to thank hiui first of all for the 

 special interest he has taken in it and for his kind judgment. On the 

 other hand I must frankly state that I am unable to follow some of 

 his arguments. Thus, why should the specimens left to us by Linneus, 

 with the documentary evidence of labels in his own handwriting, be 

 denied the status of "types'?" Should this conclusion be accepted, 

 all the ancient collections left to us by the pioneers of modern nomen- 

 clature would have to be dealt with in the same way, none of those 

 naturalists having ever pinned on their specimens a label with the 

 word " type," as is now the custom. It seems to me there is every 

 reason to believe, on the contrary, that in those days in which such 

 scanty material was available, and descriptions were generally made 

 from one or two specimens only, the specimens left to us were, in most 

 instances, the only ones the author had ever seen, thus resulting types 

 par excellence. 



Dealing with such minute creatures as insects, it is highly im- 

 probable that Linneus should have been, in the vast majority of 

 cases,! so thoroughly acquainted with them as to be able to describe 

 them from memory, as he may have done with the larger vertebrates 

 and plants, and I do not see any reason why one should believe he 

 discarded the specimens he used for his description to substitute others. 

 On the contrary, we have an actual proof that he carefully preserved 

 his most ancient specimens, the butterflies described in 1758, or 

 before that memorable year, not being set at all, or being set much 

 more roughly than those which were described at a later period. 

 Besides it seems to me nobody can be a better judge of the distinctive 



* Journal of the Linnean Society. — Zoology, Vol. xxxii. (May, 1913). 



f Such species as rapae, palaeno, etc., which are abundant in Scandinavia, 

 and liave a very simple pattern, may have been exceptions, and, in fact, we find 

 some evidence of it. 



