182 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



ON THE COLOUR VARIATIONS OF SOME AUS- 

 TRALIAN LEPIDOPTERA. 



By James Lidgett. 



(Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, Vith February, 



1893.; 

 [Abstract.] 



The observations recorded in this paper refer to the butterfly 

 Pyrameis kershawi (M'Coy), commonly known as the blue- 

 spotted Painted Lady butterfly, and the moths Porina fuscomacu- 

 lata (Walker), and Spilosoma obliqua, var. fulvohirta. Whether 

 this latter should be a distinct species is still undecided. 



Every entomologist, when classifying and arranging his Lepidop- 

 tera must have experienced the difficulty of distinguishing 

 between varieties and distinct species — difficulties which are not 

 cleared up even by the best authorities. Take the butterfly 

 Pyrameis kershavn (M'Coy), for instance : many Australian 

 lepidopterists, especially those of the northern colonies, classify 

 this as Pyrameis cardui (Linn.) In a letter recently received 

 from Mr. A. S. Olliff, of Sydney, he says : — " My opinion regarding 

 the point you raise is that it is of very little consequence whether 

 we call P. kershawi a species or a variety. The point is, and it 

 is a very interesting one, that the form kershawi is clearly a geo- 

 graphical race of comparatively recent development. Specimens 

 of P. cardui and P. kershawi have been taken in Europe — I 

 mean, specimens undistinguishable from the Australian form. I 

 myself prefer to call the insect P. cardui, var. kershawi. P. lucasi 

 (Misk.) is only, I think, an aberration of the same species." 

 Further, Mr. Olliff, in the " Proceedings Linnean Society of New 

 South Wales," 2nd series, vol. iii., contributes a paper entitled 

 " Two Instances of Colour Variations in Butterflies," in which are 

 discussed several interesting questions regarding P. cardui. He 

 states that a butterfly was captured at Bombala, N.S.W., which 

 accurately agreed with a typical specimen of P. cardui from 

 Europe, while he captured a specimen in Holland which, if taken 

 in Australia, would have undoubtedly been regarded as P. 

 kershawi. 



Professor M'Coy in " Prodromus of Zoology of Victoria," 

 decade xx., says that P. kershawi is a distinctly smaller species 

 than P. cardui, and there are other constant differences, still 

 some curious coincidences. But on the whole I have no doubt of 

 the specific distinctness of the Australian form. 



The late Mr. Henry Edwards, in the Victorian Naturalist, vol. 

 viii., page 150, points out several important differences between 

 the chrysalis of the two types, and says that P. kershawi 

 approaches more closely the allied species, P. carym (Hubn.), 

 found on the Pacific Coast of America. 



