WHAT IS POLYOMMATUS ARIANA, MOORE ? 199 



locality, to a different form, and corresponding with yet a third series from 

 the Leech collection, consisting of large specimens, which were obtained 

 from McArthur, who took them at Kokser, in the Himalayas, just 

 south of Kashmir, in July, 1888. This series is extremely variable 

 in the shade of the ground-colour, in the black spotting of the border 

 on the hindwing, and, most of all, in the breadth of the very sufi'used 

 black border on both wings but especially on the forewing. With 

 these are associated four <? s from the Elwes coll., three labelled 

 ^'Lahore" and one " Kulu," and taken on .July 7th and 8th, 1884 

 at an elevation of 1,600 ft., which exhibit all the same peculiarities. 

 Of the nine $ s in this series seven vary very little except in the size 

 and extent of the orange spots on the upper side, while one has barely 

 a trace, and the other, a small specimen, only shows slight indications 

 of these markings. It is difficult to believe, in dealing with this 

 series on the upperside, that one has not to do with a form of P. 

 amanda (with the exception of one <? , labelled " v," which obviously 

 belongs by reason of both upper and undersides to the erofi group, and 

 has no claim, beyond its locality, to be associated with the rest), but 

 the underside shows this to be quite impossible, and brings them 

 somewhat nearer to that series of ariana which Chapman has 

 pronounced to be irarus, though the importance assumed by the white 

 streak and the obsolescence of much of the underside spotting, especially 

 on the hindwings, brings some of the specimens, in spite of their size 

 and shape, nearer to the last mentioned <?/-o.s-like group which is 

 associated with stolicdiaiia. It was probably however, of snch specimens 

 as these that Alpheraky wrote as follows, in his paper on the Lepidoptera 

 brought from Thibet by General Przewalsky {Horn. ]\IenK Up. v., p. 109, 

 1889): " Lycaena ariana, Moore. 5 (3" s taken between the 7th and 12th of 

 June, 1886, between the village of Lou-ya-toun and the town of Gaotai, 

 and a 5 , taken July 1st the same year, in the village of Honan Tchin, 

 do not differ from the examples of northern India (Himalaya). This 

 Lycaena described in 1865 (Proc. Z.S.L.) seems to be midway between 

 icartis, Rott., and amanda, Schn. Some specimens have the two spots 

 one above the other in the basal half of the forewings on the underside 

 as in icariiK, but thej^ are wanting in others, as in the form icariniis, 

 Scriba, to the extent of 3 out of 6 in the Indian specimens brought 

 back by M. Fontaine. The blue colour of ariana is nearer to that of 

 amanda than to that of icarns." 



It must have been of some such S' s that de Niceville wrote as 

 follows {Butts, of India, iii., pp. 72, 78) with regard to the dark border, 

 (though it is needful to remark that Moore did not say in his original 

 description that ariana " has no outer black border on the upperside of 

 both wings ; " he merely omits to mention that it has, and such a 

 border exists in a narrow form in all his specimens and is 

 very marked in the original figure). He says, " Both sexes are 

 variable ; the male, as described by Mr. Moore from Kunawar, has on 

 the upperside of both wings no outer black border ; this is so also in 

 some specimens that I have from China and parts of Kashmir ; in 

 others, moreover, from Pangi, Lahoul, some parts of Kashmir, and 

 Ladak, there is a distinct black border, which is very variable in width ; 

 in one Pangi specimen, in which it is at its maximum, it is over one- 

 tenth of an inch wide." He adds that " the underside of the <? varies 

 in the shade of the ground colour, in the prominence of all the mark- 



