VARIATION. 



129 



signification, so that it may cover perhaps a country, or a mountain 

 range, where the species in question has been particularly well studied. 

 But, as Dr. Chapman points out, increased knowledge, or the altered 

 locale of the most energetic collectors, would very frequently upset our 

 results, and alter our nomenclature. Fourthly, there is (theoretically) 

 the average type, or the one deducible from the laws of averages. 

 This, like the first, would require omniscience as to the present 

 condition, if not also as to the past evolution, of the species, but the 

 deductions would be differently worked out. The type would not 

 nacessarily be the form which preponderated in point of numbers, but 

 the one possessing most of the characters common to, or normal in, 

 the species, and therefore serving as a central point, round which it 

 was conceived to revolve. Add to all this that there is nothing philo- 

 sophical or scientific in applying any of these tests to wing-markings 

 alone, but that they ought to take into account the entire physiology 

 and anatomy of the creature, and I think it will seen that our friends 

 who ask for a " type " in nature are not only asking for that which no 

 mortal can find for them, but also placing themselves in a hopelessly 

 unscientific position by not even attempting approximately to define 

 their conception. My own conception is that nothing more nor less is 

 understood by "type" than that form or phase of the species from 

 which the individual student takes his idea of it, and unless we con- 

 sent to some arbitrary, but practically automatic, principle whereby 

 we are to be governed, we might as well give up all hopes of any 

 stability or permanence in specific nomenclature. Looking at our 

 palsearctic butterflies alone, I wonder whether the advocates of Alexis 

 versus Icarus really think that by a miracle of good luck all the other 

 species happened to be first described from specimens conforming to 

 their ideas of a " type," or, if not, whether they intend to be logical 

 enough to inundate us with further changes. I wonder, too, what they 

 propose to do with dimorphic species which were described from one 

 sex only. The " meadow brown " cannot be called jmtixa, for males 

 of that form are, so far as I am aware, unknown ; nor can it be called 

 janirci, for this will not fit the female. Similarly the type description 

 and figure of Papilio fiava, Briinn. {Adopaea thainuas, Stgr. Cat.) do 

 not give the linear mark which characterises the male, and, therefore, 

 the name is invalid I For, after all, we have heard no argument against 

 the tj^pical character of the male of Papilio icarus, Rott., and yet the 

 name has had to be rejected. Credat Judfeus Apella ! For myself, I 

 am content to know what is the type of a name, and to call all 

 individuals of a species by the first name given to any member of it. — 

 L. B. Prout. Decmber 23rd, 1903. 



W'AR I ATION. 



Varution in males or Pericallia syringaria second brood. — 

 A number of eggs laid by a ? Pericallia siirimiaria captured in Dorset, 

 duly hatched in July, 1908, and the larvae were fed on privet. Wishing to 

 get a second-brood I kept the iarvse at a fairly high temperature, but 

 only five fed up, the remainder (a hundred or more) evidently havin^; 

 determined to hybernate. The five grew rapidly, soon turned to pupa;, 

 from which two <? s and three ? s emerged on September 28rd and the 

 following days. It struck me that both the full-fed larva; were rather 



