CYANIRIS. 103 



As in the other forms of the insect, P. artaxerxes is a brown 

 Butterfly with white fringes, and a sub-marginal band of red 

 spots, more or less obsolete in the male. There is a con- 

 spicuous white discoidal spot on the fore-wings. On the 

 under side, which is light brownish-grey, the discoidal spots, 

 the outer band of spots, and the basal spots on the hind-wings, 

 are all conspicuously white, without any black centres; the 

 sub-marginal band being more orange, paler, and edged out- 

 side with a row of black dots ; beyond, the wings are whitish, 

 with a brown line at the base of the fringes. 



There are one or two Alpine Butterflies with large white 

 spots on the underside of the wings — Agriades orbitulus (De 

 Prunner) and A. atys (Hiibner) — but they are allied to, if not 

 congeneric with, Nomiades seiniargus (Von Rottemburg). 



GENUS CYANIRIS. 

 Cyani?'is, Dalman. K. Vet. Acad. Handl. Stockholm, xxxiii. 

 pp. 6t,, 94 (181 6) ; Scudder, Syst. Rev. Amer. Butterflies, 

 p. 34 (1872) ; Moore, Lepid. Ceylon, i. p. 74 (1881). 

 Species of this genus are found in almost all parts of the 

 world, except South America and Australia. Many are very 

 closely allied, and the greater number are of a rather pale blue 

 in both sexes, with broad dark borders in the female. The 

 under surface is usually bluish-white with numerous black 

 spots, and rarely with any traces of a sub-marginal orange 

 band. The type is 



THE AZURE BLUE. CYANIRIS ARGIOLUS. 

 {Plate XLIX. Figs, i, 3 J Fig- 2 ? .) 

 Papilio argiolus^ Linn. Syst. Nat. (ed. x.) i. p. 483, no. 153 

 (1758); id. Faun. Suec. p. 284 (1761); Herbst, Naturs. 

 Schmett. xi. pi. 310, figs. 4-6 (1804). 

 Papilio ckobis, Sulzer, Gesch. Ins. pi. 18, figs. 13, 14 (1776); 

 Esper, Schmett. i. (i) p. 360, pi. 40, fig. 3 (1778 ?) ; i. (2) 

 p. 27, pi. 54, figs. 4^7, b (1780). 



