NOTES ON RUBICUNDUS, HE. 35 



BoUe, belongs to a lace quite apart from those I have described. It is 

 more variable individually than any other and a considerable number 

 of examples exhibit a type of structure quite unknown in the preceding 

 races, on account of the shape of the wings, very narrow and elongated, 

 with a sharp apex and the outer margm falling off rapidly, so that the 

 anal angle forms a very broad curve. This shape points to that of 

 Hepialiis hnniidi, Z., and other low groups of Lepidoptera and, in fact, 

 to that of the Mi/nneleonidae Neuroptera, suggesting that this form of 

 piirpHralin may be one of the most primitive Zi/f^cena, The scaling in 

 ■ the whole of this race is very thin, except in a few individuals, and 

 the wings have quite a shiny surface, dark greenish indigo in male 

 and silvery in female. The size is also very variable, but, on an 

 average, about medium, as compared to the remaining races. The 

 antenna? are longer and sometimes more slender than in the precedinw 

 ones. The variation in the pattern of the wings is greater than in any 

 other race I have seen ; it begins in both sexes by the most extreme 

 riibmtecta, differing from the ones of Central Italy only by the fact that 

 the red does not extend at the back of the second anal nervure and 

 that it is so pale and transparent as to give quite a different look to 

 the insect ; all gradations are then found up to the other extreme 

 form interrupta, Stdgr. ; as a rule, however, even when the red bands 

 are narrow, the median one extends well towards the outer margin 

 either with the entire fan-shaped area or with the projection of incisa, 

 and I have only one male which approaches form /iliitmiia, even that 

 one not quite reaching it. The capillary black streak on fringes of 

 hindwing is nearly invariably excessively thin and in the female often 

 interrupted by entirely red scales ; in two example of this sex no trace 

 of black is left, and the fringe is entirely pale red (form rubrofim- 

 BRiATA, mihi.), a form I have seen in no other race. 



Race HEBiNGi, Zeller [Stett. Knt. Zeit., V., page 42 (1844)] . I am 

 not acquainted with this race from Stettin. The original description 

 is not sufficient to give one a clear idea of it, to begin with because 

 one does not know what race of "minos" its author compares it to. 

 The antennae are said to be more slender and the wings broader a 

 combination which would be certainly very unusual and nearly 

 incredible ; the red markings extend considerably towards the outer 

 margin, "the middle spot . . . expanding suddenly very consider- 

 ably ; " the males have a little gray at the apex of the posterior wings. 

 Hering still sustained in 1881 that this was a distinct species from 

 purpu rail's. Staudinger in his Catalog of 1901 does not even admit 

 it as a variety, saying the larva is different, but the imago is very in- 

 constant. Seitz makes very little of it, simply mentioning it in a 

 few words. I am obliged to leave it at this. 



Race puRPURALis, Brunn. I am sorry not to have seen the nymo- 

 typical race from the Zealand island, the most important 'island of 

 Denmark. Judging from German specimens of various localities, I 

 presume that the races of this country belong on the whole to the 

 same group as JHr<r, always being thin-scaled and usually narrow- 

 winged. The Danish one, no doubt, resembles them considerably 

 and so does the British one. 



The European races of pin-)>aralis can, on broad lines, be divided 

 into three groups : one, with very extensive red scaling, from the 

 south, another, with that colour reduced to narrow bands, more or less 



