NOTES ON SWISS RHOPALOCEKA. I. 227 



male may be highly developed even in the absence of the testes. I 

 should regard these abnormal coridon as taking their place at the 

 extreme end of this series. The primary sexual characters of the male 

 sex are entirely swamped, and the secondary sexual characters of the 

 female sex greatly preponderate over those of the male. 



It w^ould be interesting to breed from these Royston coriilon. The 

 ova would almost certain 1}^ prove fertile. We already have proof that 

 hermaphroditism in lepidoptera is familial, and some evidence that it 

 is hereditary, though in the case of most ordinary hermaphrodites 

 •direct descent is out of the question. 



Most important knowledge of the nature of the descent might be 

 obtained, and, if the experiment proved successful, investigation on the 

 chromosomes of these individuals on the lines of Doncaster's work 

 miight be carried out, and throw light on more fundamental questions. 



The existence of a race of coridon at Royston, in which femaleness 

 so greatly preponderates over maleness, without entirely obliterating 

 it, and the absence of specimens in which maleness preponderates over 

 femaleness, or in which the characteis of both sexes are evenly balanced, 

 though these have been found elsewhere, points to a marked difference 

 between different degrees of hermaphroditism, the nature of which still 

 awaits elucidation. 



Note. — It i^ a curious, and I think pertinent, fact, that at Royston the female 

 specimens on all occasions when I have been there have numerically exceeded the 

 males by at least 20 to 1 — usually to a much greater degree even than this — 

 pointing to a very strong racial preponderance of " femaleness." — G. Wheeler. 



Notes on Swiss Rhopalocera. I. 



By the late Mk. A. J. FISON. 

 [In looking over various papers and manuscripts belonging to my 

 late uncle, Mr. A. J. Fison, of Charpigny, Switzerland, we came across 

 some notes on Swiss butterflies in his handwriting. Thinking these 

 might be of service to collectors who make Switzerland their hunting- 

 ground, and of interest to entomologists in general, I have arranged 

 them in some sort of order for publication in the Knt. Becord. This 

 was no easy task as the notes consist of miscellaneous jottings on 

 scraps of paper, written at odd moments. They therefore can lay no 

 claim to perfection in literary style, or in detailed scientific description. 



* Further notes will follow, provided the editor cares to insert them, 

 for it seems a thousand pities that Mr. Fison's knowledge of Swis^s 

 Ehopalocera, gained by 80 years' experience and patient study, should 

 remain unpublished and so be lost to the science of Lepidopterology 

 for ever. 



This particular series describes his visits to Pontresina in -July and 

 August 1901 and 190-1, and contains remarks on specimens he took 

 there and in the immediate district on those occasions. — Lilian M. 

 FisoN, Southcote, Guildford. September, 1914.] 



* As Mr. Fison, during a good many years, rarely made any entomological 

 expedition without writing an account of h to me (unless I was with him on the 

 occasion), and as I have carefully preserved these accounts, I am putting the whole 

 •of them at Miss Fison's disposal, for incorporation, so far as may be convenient, 

 in her notes. They contain a mass of valuable information which I have never 

 had time to edit, and I am indeed glad that my old friend's niece should have 

 undertaken the task of giving his notes to the world. — G. Wheeler. 



