A PHYLOGENETIC SKETCH OF THE PYRAMEID GKOUP OF VANESSIDS. 89 



a conspicuous ring-shaped blue marking, while the red parts spread out 

 towards the inner margin, someAvhat as in ab. klemenaiewiczi. The 

 basal part of the wing, adjoining the red, was violet. 



On plate i., figs. 15, 16, the upper- and underside forewing of an 

 extreme form of ab. Ideniensieiviczi is figured. Besides the large 

 symptomatic patches of red, blue, and white (fig. 16), which look as 

 though an artist had drawn them in the secessionistic stjde, with one 

 straight dash of the brush, it is interesting to note, in fig. 15, the 

 unmasking of the three costal blotches, which seem to underlie the 

 facial patterns of all the Vanessids. As is well-known, these costal 

 markings are most conspicuous in T'. nrticae, in which species they 

 !ire usually very equally and fully developed, but it is the primitively 

 marked Poh/iionia c-albinn (and the local forms resembling it) which, 

 I think, still pictures the evolution of these black markings from the 

 original brownish-yellow colour. The costal spots of 1'. c-albiim are 

 perhaps mostly described as black, and, no doubt, they are nearly black 

 in the darkest forms, characterised by very dark moss-green speckled 

 undersides, but in other lighter forms of the species only the first 

 (basal) and second costal spots have black in them, the markings are 

 chiefly dark tawny red in hue, and the apical blotch is, indeed, either 

 wholly of that colour, or only its costal rim is black. Very often the 

 black disappears out of all three spots, but, if present in part, it is then 

 strongest in the first basal blotch, while the second blotch has only a 

 streak of black on its basal side. In darker specimens the second 

 blotch will be seen to consist of two separate lines of black — which 

 stage of development is also plainly exhibited by A. lerana, A. hurejana, 

 by the primitive Pyramtis carye, fig. 2, and, in a lesser degree, by all the 

 species of the ra/Y/»/-form group. In the darkest forms of P. c-cdbioii, 

 then, the interstice between the two lines is filled up with black, and 

 the costal blotch at last appears as in V. tirticae. But the undersides 

 of both P. c-alhurn and V. urticae still exhibit tlie three distinct parts 

 that have joined up in the black upperside blotch, and in the under- 

 sides of the Pyrameids the, in itself, very variable middle part of this 

 costal blotch is outlined by grey (t'a?Y/((i-form) or blue {atalanta-iovm}, 

 thus causing the well-known beautiful markings. In aberrations of 

 both P. c-album and V. urticae the apex occasionally tends to become 

 as black as in a Pyrameid. In light-coloured specimens of Polyiionia 

 egea, it may, on the other hand, be noticed that only the first' basal 

 spot and the basal half of the second costal spot have developed at 

 all, and that the apical blotch is almost obsolete. 



This facial development is also pictured by the successive stages by 

 which the pigmentation of the wings takes place in the pupal state. 

 When, for instance, the wings of the strongly blotched V. urticae are 

 taken from the pupa during the suitable stages of development, it is 

 seen that the pigmentation of the black costal blotches does not begin 

 till the red pigment of the ground colour has dift'uscd into the wing, 

 leaving the parts that are to become black and the margin bare (the 

 yellow costal spots begin red, like the ground colour), and that then 

 first the basal blotch turns black, while the apical one is left without 

 pigment to the last. The blue lunules, however, appear already in this 

 stage. After the development of the red in the upperside, the 

 underside markings are laid out in a beautiful golden-brown 

 •colour, reminding one of A. lerana and hurejana, especially as the 



