﻿THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



Vol. XLV.] SEPTEMBEK, 1912. [No. 592 



SOME NOTES ON THE LIFE-HISTORY OF MELAN- 

 ARGIA JAPYGIA subsp. SUWAROVIUS. 



By F. W. Fkohawk, M.B.O.U., F.E.S., and the Hon. N. Charles 

 Rothschild, M.A., F.L.S., F.E.S. 



(Plate VII.) 



This Eastern race of M. japyrjia extends as far westward as 

 Puszta Pesz6r in Hungary. This is apparently the only locality 

 in that country where the species is at present found, though, ac- 

 cording to Aigner,* at one period it occurred close to Budapest. 

 Aigner * further maintained that the Hungarian specimens 

 could be distinguished from those coming from the Ural Moun- 

 tains and South Russia, and formed a special local race, clotlio 

 Hb. This distinction, however, cannot be maintained, and the 

 most that can be said is that the Peszer examples are very large 

 and very white : they are, in fact, remarkably fine specimens, a 

 feature exhibited by most of the butterflies occurring in this 

 classic locality. Several entomologists have described Peszer, 

 but only one appears to have seen this remarkable butterfly in 

 any abundance, i. e., Miss Margaret E. Fountaine,t and none 

 have, as far as we are aware, described the peculiar features of 

 the wood. Puszta Peszer is a long narrow wood of some 1300 

 acres of by no means a uniform character. The northern third 

 has been artificially afforested some eighty years ago, and con- 

 sists largely of acacia [Rohinia j^seudacacia) and poplar trees, 

 planted on sandhills which at the time of afforestation were 

 wind-blown and shifting. The middle third of the wood consists 

 (or perhaps one should say consisted) largely of oak trees, 

 sparsely scattered with numerous open spaces between them, 

 the soil being a mixture of sand and humus, or, as it is locally 

 known, " black sand." The most southern portion of the wood 

 resembles the middle portion as to general contour and quality 

 of the soil, but lacks, to a great extent, the oak which is here 

 replaced by birch. It is in the two last-named portions of the 

 wood (the true forest) where smvarovius is found, and both these 



^^ Rov. Lap. xiv., p. 144 (1907). 

 -t- Ent. xxxi., p. 286 (1898). 



ENTOM. — SEPTEMBER, 1912. U 



