﻿ERBBIA MELAMPUS AND E. EPIPHRON VAR. CASSIOPE. 835 



that of a female white-pupilled on all the wings, and therefore 

 typical female epiphron ; in fact, I think, in all authors down 

 to a comparatively recent period, wherever epiphron is figured, 

 this female of Enoch's is copied and adapted (?) to the male. 

 Thus we find Godart and Duponchel (' Diurnes,' vol. ii. pi. xvi. 

 figs. 3-4) figuring both male and female studded with silvery- 

 white spots on the rufous bands of both wings, and the examples 

 are as large in size as E. ceto at least. Nor does the text suggest 

 the absence of the white pupils in the male : " La bande des pre- 

 mieres ailes offre de deux a quatre yeux noirs aprunelle blanche." 



Herrich Schaeffer figures the male epiphron with continuous 

 antemarginal bands on all the wings filled with white-pupilled 

 spots (Schmett. von Europa. pi. xx. figs. 92, 93) ; but he shows 

 us no more than the under side of the female (fig. 94) with the 

 spots on the abbreviated ante-marginal band of the hind wings 

 only pupilled white. Spuler, also (Schmett. Europas. 1910, pi. ix. 

 fig. 7), figures the male epiphron, curiously enough ignoring the 

 typical female altogether as well as both sexes of cassiope ; and 

 there is nothing in his figure to distinguish it from such male 

 cassiope as one may take in the Scotch mountains ; at all events, 

 in my copy of this work I can detect no white pupilling of the 

 eye-spots ; and I say " curiously," because it seems strange that 

 in a German work of the kind, the female, which should be the 

 characteristic German (Harz and Vosges) epiphron, is omitted 

 altogether. Dr. Seitz, however, illustrates both sexes, and in 

 my opinion correctly : the female with white pupils to the eyes, 

 the male with none. Lang, also, figures the male only (' Butter- 

 flies of Europe,' pi. Iviii. fig. 1) ; nor does he insist in the text 

 on the white pupils as a sexual character of the female type form 

 alone, but implies, apparently, that these may occur in both sexes. 



I have carefully gone through the series of epiphron and its 

 forms in the National Collection at South Kensington, including 

 the soi-disant var, cassiope, and not until I arrived at Mr. H. J. 

 Elwes's var. rhodopensis from the Balkan Rilo Dagh (6500 ft.), 

 could I detect a trace of white pupillation in a single male. In 

 this variety, which is more strongly reminiscent of E. medusa by 

 the brilliance of the ocellation in the female, there are males 

 with two tiny apical ocellations on the fore wings, and a smaller 

 pair nearest the costal margin of the hind wings distinctly white- 

 pupilled. On the other hand, none of the males from the Harz 

 and the Silesian Alps, or the Vosges (with white-pupilled females 

 in each case) show a trace of white, so that we may fairly con- 

 clude that the typical male epiphron, known to entomologists 

 who have more than a book knowledge of the species, is a plain 

 black spotted form, and that Stand inger is right in his short 

 diagnosis limiting the white pupilled form to the female . . . 

 "fascia {maculis) extrema riifa ocellis ( ? ) albopunctatis." 



I do not think many British entomologists, however, will 



2 d2 



