NOTES ON ZYC.AENA MINOS. 273 



minos of the Viemui Ciii<ih(ju('.'" This is the only reference tliat 

 Fuessly makes to minos, although in Illiger's New Edit/on of the Vienna 

 Catalogue, p. 35 (not 45), the description is referred to as if it were 

 written under the name of minos, an evident error. Fuessly describes 

 and figures the species under the name of S. pytkia, nowhere does lie 

 call it S. minos. Now Staudinger, in his Catalog der Lep., etc., refers 

 to Fuessl^^'s description oi pijtliia, as follows: — "? Fuessly, Mag., \., p. 

 140 ; T. 1, 6 (1778)." What the query is for I do not understand, for 

 Fuessly's description is valid, the s^Decies certain, and the figures 

 perfect. The S. pythia of Fabricius is another species, and his name 

 has long been sunk as sj'nonymous with scabiosae. Of the identity 

 of the S. pythia of Fuessly there is no doubt. No species is 

 known by this name, and it has three years priority over piloseUae, 

 Esper. But it is inadvisable to change a well-known name if it can be 

 heli:)ed, and one hardlj' likes to change piloselJae iov p>ythia, in ^^\ie of 

 the law of 251'iority. There is still another name, however, to be con- 

 sidered — minos. This is a Vienna Catalogue name, and is referred to 

 by Fuessly as a species near his pythia. It is the name by which the 

 species Avas generally known, until Staudinger rej^laced it by pilosellae 

 in (1861 '?) 1871, There appears to be no doubt of the identity of the 

 insect which Schiffermiiller and Denis called Spjhinx minos. Its j^lace 

 in the Vienna Catalogue, among the Z3'gaenids, fixes it as a Burnet ; the 

 three- worded description " Schwarzlicher, dreiflekkiger Schwarmer, 

 ;S. minos," determines the species almost certainly. The diagnosis in 

 the New Edition of the Vienna Catalogue, is A'ery imsatisfactory : " Alis 

 anticis maculatis," but the references therein to various authors appear 

 to be correct. It seems then to be pushing matters rather far to discard 

 the name of minos ; but if it is to go, then pythia, Fuessly, must un- 

 doubtedly take its place. So much for the synonymy. 



There is no difference whatever between the Irish si^ecimens and 

 those from some of the Piedmont and Savoy localities, either in 

 intensit}'^ of colour, size or variation of the markings. Occasional 

 large and small sjDecimens occur, as I have said, in all localities, the 

 result of good or bad nutrition of the larvae ; the smallest si)ecimens 

 occur on those dry and hot mountain slopes on which the herbage is 

 comi^aratively S2:)arse and stunted, and one can Ijut su])pose that the 

 occasional small specimens • in other localities come from larvre not 

 particularly well placed as to food. I have already' stated that there 

 is considerable variation as regards the separation of the blotches. 

 Those specimens in the British JNIuseum collection in which the red 

 blotches are comparatively thin streaks, and in which, therefore, there 

 is a greater preponderance of the ground colour, are named var. inter- 

 rupta. Another Staudingerian varietj^, graeca, is, according to the 

 specimens in the British Museum, almost tyj^ical : like the Bourg St, 

 Maurice specimens, they are inclined to be small, but appear to present 

 no distinct characters whatever. One of the sjiecimens in the IMuscum 

 series, labelled graeca, is distinctly of the interrupta form. 



Birchall was the first to refer the Irish insect to Loderer's 

 nuhigena, but Lederer's one specimen from the Pastcrz glacier does not 

 appear to have had anything sufficiently in common with our Irish 

 specimens to iinite them. Whether Birchall Avas acquainted with 

 Lederer's original description is doubtful. Staudinger pulls out the 

 gist of Birchall's description in the following diagnosis : " abdomiue 



