A PHYLOGENETIC SKETCH OF THE PYKAMEID GROUP OF VANESSIDS. 85 



egg-masses of the ants, they would leave the ? after the eggs were 

 laid. Later in the year, when all the eggs would have hatched, 

 Mr. Keys sent me specimens from Devonshire, taken loose in the 

 nest of F. rufa. 



Mr. Pearce considers two mites I took in nests of Tetrainoriion 

 caespitutii at ^Yhitsand Bay, m April, 1907, to be Laelaps iiiyriiiophilKn, 

 Mich. It has not been recorded from Britain before. 



A phylogenetic sketch of the Pyrameid group of Vanessids 



{with plate). 

 By T. KEUSS. 

 (Concluded from p. 67). 

 Turning now to the atalajita-iovm. group of species two of which 

 have been mentioned already in connection with the cardui-ionn 

 species, one finds that all these forms, while exhibiting great disparity 

 in size, may be characterised facially as follow^s : Upijersule ground 

 colour black or brown-black, often showing a bronze gloss, with bands 

 of red or reddish-orange, crimson, orange or yellowish; and with the 

 apex of forewings blotched with white. As will be seen, this descrip- 

 tion could be applied also to P. atalanta and its aberrations alone. The 

 vndersidi's are generally like those of atalanta and indica (fig. 17), but 

 often show less detail, and are more plain in their colouring, as is, how- 

 ever, often the case also in aberrations of P. atalanta. Sometimes the 

 blue marking beyond the red band of the forewing is ring-shaped, as 

 in the large P. itea, F., of Australia, with creamy-yellow bands, and 

 P. (jouiTilla, F., of New Zealand ; also a large species, with red or 

 crimson bands; another time the blue appears as a narrow brilliant 

 streak crossed by the veins of the wings, so in P. tainnwamea, Esch., a 

 giant form from the Sandwich Islands, with fiery orange bands shaped 

 as in P. indica, while otherwise the blue marking is intermediate in 

 diflerent ways between the ring and the streak, as in P. atalanta, P. 

 indica, and in P. dejeani, Godt., from the mountains of Java, the latter 

 very much resembling P. atalanta in size and character of mark- 

 ings, but in the ground colour P. dejeani is lighter bronze, and the 

 bands are dull yellow in colour. In all the species mentioned, 

 including the Araschnids, the curious markings that look like the 

 number 980 in the hindwing of P. atalanta, (pi. i., fig. 18) are more or 

 less plainly indicated. 



According to the shape and position of the red or yellow colour- 

 bands, the six species divide into three pairs : (1) atalanta, dejeani, 

 (2) indica, tannneamea, (3j itea, (lonerilla. The two latter species from 

 Australia — New Zealand differ from the others in the colour-bands 

 of the upperside of the hindwings, which are placed and ocellated much 

 as in the well-known British Erehia aetldops or E. epiphmn. The white- 

 centred and white-ringed ocelli show up where in atalanta and indica only 

 a row of dark patches follows the inner margin of the I'ed band (fig. 13), 

 but, in Pi/irnneis atalanta ab. incrri/ieldi, these patches are blue-centred 

 and blue-ringed. On the forewings of itea and (jonerilla the bright bands 

 are much shorter and broader than in atalanta, and form large blotches 

 of colour. The ground colour in the yellow-marked itea is bronze- 

 brown ; in the crimson-banded gonerilla it is black. Except for the 

 blue ring on the forewing, the underside facies in both species is some- 



