LEPTOSIA DUPONCHELI VAR. ^ESTIVA AT DIGNE. 149 



zine, Mr. J. W. Tutt, who was coming south as I was going north. 

 It was a dramatic method of meeting, and a very welcome one to me, 

 for Tutt's personality was to every one, at all times, an interesting 

 one, and it was doubly interesting to me just then, for I had not heard 

 a word of my mother tongue for several weeks. 



This meeting led to a day's collecting together and much talk ; 

 amongst other matters we discussed the genus Leptosia that we found 

 everywhere common. Tutt maintained that some of them, which were 

 without dark markings on the underside, were L. dnponcheli var. 

 aestica, Stgr. 



The next day, my friend having gone still further south, I enlisted 

 the services of the local professional entomologist Victor Cotte, and asked 

 him in the course of our wanderings, what the summer brood of L. 

 duponcheli was like. Cotte said it was scarce at Digne, but that he had 

 taken a specimen a few weeks before. This I subsequently purchased 

 and have now. It is indistinguishable from the spring form. I 

 therefore concluded that Tutt was wrong, for Cotte knows the species 

 to be found at Digue well, and is UoL.ally to be relied upon. 



There the matter rested until last month, when happening to 

 pick up Wheeler's Butter/lies of the Alps, 1 found that the author 

 describes var. aestica as " with yellowish undersides." This shook my 

 faith in Cotte's specimen, and after thinking the matter over, I took 

 from my continental series of L. sinapis all the specimens collected at 

 Digne during four visits I had made to that town, placed them in 

 another drawer and studied them carefully. Almost at once I found 

 a male that in the shape of the front wings agreed exactly with spring 

 L. duponcheli, but which was entirely without dark markings beneath, 

 and a further search showed that I had seven more specimens, five 

 males and two females of this form, all these examples were taken 

 from between July 11th and 16th, 1904, and were, I now feel pretty 

 sure, L. duponcheli var. aestira. I accordingly took them, with all 

 the other hitherto supposed L. sinapis to the British Museum, and 

 compared them with the series of both species in the National Collection. 

 Amongst the L. duponcheli there I found eight examples which were 

 without dark markings beneath, but these were not labelled var. aestira. 

 I also found amongst the L. sinapis, which were in another drawer, 

 two more of this form of L. duponcheli, which were labelled var. 

 aestim. All these ten specimens were from Asia Minor. After com- 

 paring them with my examples captured at Digne I could only conclude 

 that these were identical. 



L. duponcheli var. aestiva is evidently common and well distributed 

 at Digne, my examples coming — three from the Eaux Chaudes valley, 

 one from La Collete, and four from the right bank of the Bleone, 

 above the bridge leading to the railway station, which I have always 

 found one of the most prolific localities for the spring emergence. 

 Presumably, it was more abundant than L. sinapis in July, 1904, for 

 I find I only brought back three males and two females of the latter 

 species, which were respectively var. diniensis and var. enjsiini, both of 

 which forms were more attractive to the eye than the specimens I have 

 since found to be var. aestiva. 



The chief distinction between var. aestiva and L. sinapis var. 

 diniensis, and which serves to distinguish them at a glance, is the shape 

 of the front wings, which exactly resembles, in this respect, examples 



