AGRIADES POLONUS, ZELLER. 29 



Agriades polonus, Zeller, a British insect, witli some account of 

 tlie recorded examples of this form. 



By J. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 



We have alread}' noted in considerable detail (A Xat. Hist. Brit. 

 Butts., iii., pp. 323-4) that this is a British insect. On May 20th, 

 1893, we captured at Cuxton, among A. thetis, a 3 example of a 

 "blue" that, in size, shape, and general appearance, might be A. 

 coridon, but which approaches more closely A. thetis [hdlaniua) in 

 colour. This example was exhibited at the meeting of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of London, April 11th, 1891, as a possible hybrid of 

 thet is y coridon. Another specimen, captured at Airolo in June 1907, 

 also among A. tlwtis, was exhibited by Mr. Dadd, at the meeting of the 

 Entomological Society of London, (Jctober 21st, 1908, and again the 

 suggestion was made that it was a hybrid thetisx coridon, Kej'nes 

 recorded {F.nt. Bee, xx., p. 178) that, on June 25th, 1907, he captured, 

 with an abundance of typical A. thetis, two fine specimens of A. 

 coridon ab. cori/doniiis, which could not possibly have been the latter, 

 but which we now know {teste Wheeler) is the same insect as those 

 noted above. In the British Museum collection, when studying the 

 material for our work, A Natural History of British Lepidoptera, we 

 discovered Zeller's original type of polonns from Posen, described Stett. 

 Ent. Xeit<i., 1845, p. 351, and which he said he should have considered 

 a hybrid betAveen thetisx coridon, had he not known of three exactly 

 similar examples. Herrich-Schiiffer then figured (.s'/ys. Bearb., i., 

 pi. xci., figs. 432-3) an insect which, he says (supp., p. 27), was drawn 

 from a specimen received from Zeller. Then Gerhard figured [Mon., 

 p. 21, pi. xxxvii., figs. 4a-i) the entirely different eastern form of A. 

 coridon (now known as var. corydonins) under the name polona, whilst 

 Staudinger recorded [Hor. Soc. Knt. Boss., xiv., p. 244) the 

 capture of a <? polonus on June 28rd, 1875, at Kerasdere, in Asia 

 Mmor, flying with typical A. thetis, but then, again, he (like Gerhard) 

 unfortunately mixes it up with A. coridon var. cori/donius from 

 the Taurus mountains, citing both under the name polonus : he also 

 notes {op. cit.) another possible specimen of the real polonus, Zell., 

 captured on the Pomeranian border of Silesia, and supports 

 Zeller's view of a hybrid origin for this form. With this information 

 at disposal, and knowing that Zeller's original types came from 

 Germany, htaudinger, in 1871, referred {Cat., 2nd ed., p. 12) polonus, 

 Zell., to A. thetis, as a variety, and unaccountably gave only " Asia 

 Minor " as a locality for it, and from this blunder spread the general 

 error of referring the blue forms of A. coridon (the true cori/donius, 

 H.-Sch., and often caucasica. Led.), from Asia Minor, to polonus, 

 Zell., an error intensified in the 1901 Cataloi/ (3rd ed., p. 86), 

 where Staudinger gives, as the range of Zeller's polonus (still 

 accounted a var. of A. thetis), " Eastern Prussia, Aragon, Taurus, 

 Syrian jNIts.," so that, on this occasion, the true polonus, A. coridon var. 

 hispana, A. coridon var. corijdonius, and A. coridon var. si/riara, all "ot 

 jumbled into the A. tJietis var. polonus of Staudinger. There appears 

 to have been no other British example of this species yet recorded 

 except the Cuxton S . We had wondered whether Pickett's example 

 of ^1. cnr/Wo», described as of " bfllarnus" tint {I'roc. Sth. Land. Knt. 

 Soc, 1906, p. 47) was one, but we have seen this, and find it merelv 

 February 15th, 1910. 



