CCENONYMPHA TYPHON, ETC, 101 



almost seems as if no two avithors had got hold of the same form. 

 The latter is, however, more interesting to British entomologists, 

 inasmuch as most if not all of its varieties occm' in this country as well 

 as on the Continent. This is not a common occurrence, at all events to 

 anything like the same extent, among our butterflies. The varieties 

 have been named independently, both here and there ; often they 

 have been identified with insects with which it is clear that they have 

 nothing do ; and so, in the case of this species, we have added to the 

 task of disentangling the Continental synonymy, the necessity of 

 doing the same for the British and then of attempting to correlate the 

 two. 



The conclusions that will be set forth in this paper are based, on 

 the one hand, upon a careful study of all descriptions or figures of the 

 insect, whether British or Continental, to which any reference could 

 be found ; and on the other, upon an examination of Mr. Tutt's long 

 series of the species, which has been gathered from very many 

 localities, and of my own much smaller one, for which I have to thank 

 many kind correspondents. 



It will, I think, be best first to consider the butterfly as it occurs 

 in the United Kingdom, and to try and determine whether it occurs in 

 such distinct forms as to justify varietal names ; then to deal with the 

 names which have been given by our countrymen ; and finally to try 

 and correlate these with the Continental names. 



At the outset it must be frankly admitted that in a series even of 

 the extent of that possessed by Mr. Tutt, it becomes possible to find 

 an infinite number of intermediate links between the two extreme 

 forms. Nevertheless it seems to me possible to single out three 

 forms which are sufficiently distinct to justify their receiving names, 

 and which roughly seem to predominate respectively in the Southern, 

 the Middle and the Northern areas of distribution of the species in 

 the United Kingdom. 



It may be helpful at this point to indicate certain characters 

 which are not sufficiently constant to be available in the diflerentiation 

 of the several forms. The colour of the upper surface is of some value 

 in differentiating the Southern from the other two forms, but of none 

 as between the Middle and Northern forms ; the female is always 

 lighter than the male— in the Middle and Northern forms much 

 lighter. The continuity or interruptedness of the white band across 

 the middle of the under surface of the hind-wings is of no value 

 whatever ; its condition varies infinitely and correspondingly in all the 

 forms. The best distinguishing marks are to be found in the colour 

 and ocellation of the under side of the hind-wings. 



After these preliminaries, we will proceed to consider the three 

 forms. The Southern, which is met with chiefly on the Lancashire 

 mosses, reaching across to the southern part of Westmoreland, is of a 

 more or less dark brown on the upper surface, the females being only 

 slightly paler. The ocellated spots on the upper surface are well marked, 

 and are surrounded with a fulvous ring; three of them are almost always 

 to be found on the hind-wing, sometimes five or six. The underside 

 of the hind-wing is of a uniform brown tint ; the transverse white 

 band is usually well developed, and the black constituent of the ocellated 

 spots is large, so that these form a very conspicuous part of the ornamen- 

 tation of the wing. 



