HO 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



undei'side without a trace of the usual ochre-coloured suffusion." 

 Hiihner's example was au Austrian one, so also was Ochsenbeimer's, 

 the latter noting, in 1808, that he had "seen an aberration in Schiffer- 

 miiller's collection under the name of coretas, in which the reddish- 

 yellow spots and silvery dots were entirely absent." Here then 

 within two years, two names were given to the peculiar aberration 

 with the orange spots on the underside of the hindwings quite absent; 

 but everyone who has collected European butterflies at all widely, will 

 know that there appear to be intermediate forms, in which a pale 

 yellow remnant is all that is left of the sometimes strongly-developed 

 orange markings. 



If one takes the northern margin of the range of this species in 

 Europe — somewhere not far from 54° N. lat., except in eastern Russia 

 where it ascends somewhat in the neighbourhood of the Urals — the 

 form alcetas, Hb. {coretufi, Ochs.), appears to be found only as a very rare 

 aberration. It is noted as very rare in the Wiatka govt, in Russia (Krou- 

 likowsky), in Germany it is recorded once from the Schrey (Hering), and 

 very rarely in the forest of Crummenhageu (Spormann), in Pomerania; 

 it is also reported from Osnabruck, in Hanover (Jammerath), whilst in 

 Posen it has occurred rarely near Kobylepola (Schultz). In Lower Austria, 

 coretas occurs singly with argiades and pohjspen/iun on the Hernstein 

 district (Rogenhofer), but in Switzerland, in the Rhone Valley, in the 

 southern parts of Austria and in certain parts of southern and south- 

 western France it becomes commoner, and here and there forms a 

 separate race, but apparently it is the same insect, and has alwa}s been 

 so considered. If Wheeler be right in his statement to us that the 

 so-called iSwiss puli/s/ierrhon have also no orange on the underside of 

 the hindwings, and that specimens with orange on the underside of 

 the hindwings are not known in Switzeiland, then only coretas in 

 both broods would appear to occur in that country, and the pohjsperchon 

 are wrongly so recorded. Staudiuger, in his original description of 

 decolorata, states that this latter is a form of coretas. 



The superficial reasons for considering coretas and anjiades the same 

 species are self-evident. Its occurrence as a rare aberration among both 

 the spring and summer broods of argiades over a large geographical 

 area ; the presence of intermediate forms ; the otherwise simihir chai acter 

 of the examples (except for the failure of the orange spots on the under- 

 side of the hindwings) all point in this direction. Jachontov's hint 

 as to the difference in the size and artangeuient of the spots on the 

 underside of the wings wants considering in the light of the heavily- 

 spotted Asiatic examples, otherwise of quite characterised argiades 

 form. Rebel has quite recently attempted to prove that the long-held 

 views are correct. Seeing that the original examples of aUetas, Hb. 

 and coretas, Ochs. come from Austria, it was necessary that Austrian 

 examples of this form should be examined. Baron Schlereth has 

 tested the genitalia of jiohjspercJion, coretas, and argiades, and finds 

 them practically identical. So far then it would appear that coretas, 

 as we know it, is not a distinct and separate species from argiades. 



In Austria-Hungary a still more obsoletely -marked form occurs, riz., 

 depuncta, Kirschke. In this, not only has the orange entirely or nearly 

 disappeared from the underside of the hindwings, but the usual black 

 streaks also, the latter being represented merel) by the spot in ce 1 2. 

 This then might be considered, except that the orange is not always 

 quite absent, an extreme form of alcetas, Hb. { = coretas, Ochs.). 



