200 THE entomologist's record. 



For definitions of the subdivisions of species, as used bj^ us, I refer 

 those who wish to know them to my introduction to llhopalocera 

 Palaearctica, simply stating here that, since I wrote it, experience has 

 gone a long way towards convincing me that species are most positive 

 entities, with very definite limits, with which all the other categories 

 we use, to express relationship and classify variations, are not to be 

 compared. I still believe that in vast regions, such as the Palaearctic 

 there exist in some localities subspecies and races connecting 

 groups, which are decidedly distinct species in localities very distant 

 from these, but what I have found is that intermediate individuals 

 never exist, when two species fly together in the same region, however 

 suggestive their features ma,y be. For instance, the individuals I took 

 to be transitional between Pieris rapae&xidi tuanni, and I called utannideH, 

 have turned out to be simply southern forms of rapae, found also 

 where vianni does not exist. 



An interesting additional species to the following List is the fossil 

 Doritites bomiaskii, Eebel, discovered in the Pisan Mountains, in 

 Tuscany, and preserved in the Vienna Museum. It has been figured 

 and discussed by Emilio Turati in his paper on the Variations of 

 Parnamus apollo race pumilus, Stichel [Atti Soc. Itol. Scienze Nat., 

 Ivii., p. 29), where he also gives his view that the genus Parnassius 

 must have originated in Europe, and that puDiilus is one of the most 

 ancient forms and a direct offshoot of D. bognmshii. I fear I cannot 

 share this opinion. The remarkable resemblance of this fossil to P. 

 delphhifi race hmiza, only found on a few mountains in the Himalaya, 

 at enormous altitude3, where scarcely any of the Lepidoptera of our 

 times can exist, as also the fossil neuration and pouch, identical with 

 those of the living genus Luehdorfia of the far East, show, it seems to 

 me, that hnma is one of the most ancient types, and that Doritites 

 belongs, presumably, to a collateral and intermediate branch between 

 the Paniasdidi and the Thaiidi, already notably progressed, however, as 

 compared with a hypothetical ancestor of these two tribes. I should 

 consider apollo the most recent and highly specialised Parna^mm, 

 which is gradually replacing nomion since an epoch posterior to the 

 formation of the Bebring Straits, so that it has not passed over into 

 America, like the latter and like delins : instead, it has spread broadly 

 all over Europe, because it is the most suited to our epoch, and it even 

 succeeds, on this account, in holding its ground on the unfavourable 

 Aspromonte, notwithstanding that it is reduced there to the miserable 

 dwarf jiiiiiiilus. 



(To be continued.) 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Somatic Mutations. — The following asymmetrical specimens of 

 Lepidoptera are probably somatic mutations and ought to have been 

 included in my list published in this volume of the Ent. Pcrord, pp. 

 105-111. 



Arctia caia, L. — Male. M. Durenne has kindly drawn my 

 attention to an example with the left forewing typical, but with the 

 right dark brown except for a zigzag white line almost parallel to the 

 termen, a small white basal blotch and three very small white spots. 

 The hindwings also are asymmetrical. {Piev. Soc. Ent. Naniuroise^ 



