A PHYLOGENETTC SKETCH OF THE PYRAMEID GROUP OF VANESSIDS. 87 



hand, the orange parts of the inner half of the marginal band and of 

 the wavy median line spread and meet along the veins, thus isolating 

 a row of black patches, which correspond in position with those in 

 fig. 13, or with the ocelli described in P. {lonerilla. Indeed, if the 

 aberration of Araschnia levana be held against the light, each one of 

 these black patches will be seen to have a transparent white spot in its 

 ■centre, due to a full row of correlated violet-white spots on the under- 

 side of the wings, the (abnormal) development of which appears to 

 ■depend on that of the said black spots on the upperside, which thus 

 plainly betray the ocelliform tendency leading up to the markings in 

 P. fionerilla. The Siberian Arasclinia hurejana and davidis exhibit 

 these markings in nortnal specimens. But for its large size hurejana 

 would be the model form of a "cross" between levana and prorsa. 

 Such aberrations of the well-known A. levana-prorsa, as those described, 

 are by no means rare. Anyone desirous may breed a few of these 

 interesting forms simply by keeping his pupse of the summer form 

 prorsa in a dark box, which must be placed in a cool room. Professor 

 Standfuss' father already, in 1852, bred two examples of A. levana 

 ab. porinia by keeping the pupte in a cellar for a time. A few of the 

 pupte, kept in the way suggested, will then even hybernate and 

 produce the type, A. levana, or some interesting phylogenetic aberra- 

 tions, in the spring following. On February 6th, 1 bred from a pupa 

 ■of the latter kind, after eight days of + 1G°C. to 25°C. and seven 

 nights of 8°C. to 15°C., an aberration ((?) that exhibited large 

 ■confluent blue lunules in an otherwise, in many details, urticae- 

 form upperside, while the levana underside could be described as being 

 of the Pyrameid kind, most resembling P. indica and P. nu/rinna, 

 especially in the hindwings, while the forewings showed something of 

 the bone- white ground colour found in V. urticae. These harmoniously 

 coloured, strigated, undersides of levana-prorsa, and of the tropical 

 Pyrameids, are evidently primitive in their composition, while the 

 dusky undersides of Vanessid species, like urticae, io, poli/Moros, etc., 

 have developed in adaption to special habit. It may be noted that all 

 the species of the latter category with very dark undersides have 

 acquired the habit of hijhernatinn in the iiuat/o state, which fact— con- 

 sidering the conditions under which hybernation takes place — may 

 well account for the suppression of colour-development in their under- 

 sides. Though my levana aberration was bred from among summer 

 pupae (which Mr. Merrifield had kindly sent to me), it was far 

 smaller than any of the ^ jirorsa that had emerged in August, six 

 months before, though the pupa itself showed no visible dift'erence in 

 size from the others. In this connection I would like to remind that 

 extreme heat can produce the same physiological, not only the same facial, 

 results as cold. In E.vp. Zool. Stud., p. 19, Professor Standfuss records 

 that (fresh) pupae of A. levana var. prorsa, if exposed to high tempera- 

 tures, behave in a way which I find is quite similar to that I have 

 suggested above, and, moreover. Professor Standfuss figures on pi. iv., 

 fig. 11, an aberration as typical of the case in question, which only, in 

 the hindwings, is nearer to prorsa than my fig. H, but otherwise 

 resembles it closely, and is also a $ specimen. Of P. atalanta aber- 

 rations, which, I think, might be, or have already been, captured in 

 the field, and which are also of phylogenetic interest, I bred several 

 during the two last seasons. The first one, bred from among wild 



