NOTES ON RUBICUNDUS, HB. 



29 



€barp., PZ. f/iomae and G. nifiis, L., were both abundant and active, 

 as though in midsummer, and I flushed 0. caeridescens, and it did one 

 good to see the blue flash of his wings when one knew winter was 

 almost upon us, especially as the previous afternoon I had been down 

 to the bottom of the garden and found no Orthoptera left. But the 

 final goodbye to this long and splendid, but to me, entomologically 

 speaking, wasted, summer, was on October 28rd. This was a warm 

 day, but the sky was rather overcast and the long-waited rain seemed 

 to be coming at last ; there was a gusty wind and the dust was 

 unpleasant. Still, we were able to lunch in the open air, and out for 

 a stroll I picked up St. bicolor, a few pairs of PL iiiornae and a female 

 Calopteiiiis italictis, L. That night there was a violent thunderstorm, 

 and we looked out of the window next morning to see the countryside 

 under a thick mantle of snow. 



Later notes: — On the morviing of 26th I found a belated male 

 Fhaneroptera falcata in the house, seeking refuge from the winter 

 outside. 



On 28th, a week after the first snow and several cold nights, I 

 heard Kph. vitimn, a single specimen, chirping as though to keep 

 himself warm, after dark. This very late date shows what a hardy 

 species this is, and helps to explain the fact that it is the only member 

 of this family to extend beyond the boundaries of its warm, original 

 home, in the Western Mediterranean countries, to Central and 

 Western Europe. 



November 1st. — The summer has returned ; once more lunch in 

 the garden, and on a sunny hillside found St. bicolor, St. elei/ans, 

 Govip/ioceriis riiftis and PL niurnae, the first chirping away busily, for 

 sheer light-heartedness, the mating season being long over. 



Notes oil Zygaena rubicundus, Hb. ; Z. erythrus, Hb., and on the 

 races of Z. purpuralis, Brunn, in Europe. 



By ROGER VERITY, M.D. 



This little group of species is interesting because it constitutes one 

 of the extreme variations of the Zi/()amae, that in which the nervural 

 pattern exists alone. ' The result is that also the red markings of the 

 secondary pattern form bands parallel to the neuration and are never 

 divided up into spots, as in most species of the genus. A vestige of 

 the true or transverse pattern only occurs exceptionally in very dark 

 individuals of the male sex found in the northern races of pnriniralis : 

 form se.niutcnlata, Burgeff, in which the median and the posterior red 

 bands are each divided in two. In erythrus there occurs the very rare 

 veritiji, Stefanelli [BidL Soc. PJnt. JtaL, Ix., p. 255 (1909)], in which 

 the median band is thus divided. 



That these three species are perfectly distinct there can be no 

 doubt, their larvae are quite distinct from each other ; that of 

 riibiamdus was discovered by Querci and described and figured in 

 Oberthlir's Etudes de Lepidopt. (Joiirparee, v., fig. 824, and vi., p. 164. 

 The imagines also bear constant differential features. Z. ndjiciouhis 

 always has white legs in both sexes and a white collar and epaulettes ; 

 these characters are only met with in the female of erijthnis and very 

 rarely and to a slight degree in that of purpuralis ; in uibiciindus the 



