﻿336 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



agree with his version of var. cassiope : " maculis rufis obsoletis, 

 ocelhs nigris caeeis " (unless he means to imply that the band 

 is simply broken up). We have always regarded our insular 

 forms as cassiope, but of the number met with how many can 

 be said to have the band on the fore wings entirely obsolete ? 

 A very small percentage, I think ; and these in any case referable 

 either to var. (et ab.) nelamus, Bsdv., or Tutt's more complete 

 ab. ohsoleta. 



Mr. Wheeler (' Butterflies of Switzerland,' p. 123) describes 

 cassiope as differing from the type in that the fulvous band on 

 the upper side of the hind wings is replaced by three or four black 

 dots in fulvous rings, which corresponds more with Fabricius's 

 description, but not with Staudinger's. But, though he does 

 not say so, I gather that he also, when he was writing on the 

 subject, regarded the male epipJiron as white-pupilled, the male 

 cassiope as lacking these eye-spots. 



Meanwhile, Fabricius, who is cited as the author of the 

 name cassiope (' Mantissa Insectorum,' 1787), gives us a de- 

 scription totally at variance with Staudinger's conclusions : — 



" Alls integris fuscis ; fascia riifa ; punctis tribus ocellaribus 

 nigris, posticis subtus punctis solis. 



" Habitat in Austrice Gramine Dom. Schieffermyler " (sic). 



The italics are my own, for I think from what follows, and 

 from Fabricius's limitation of cassiope to tbe Austrian Alps (?), 

 that he may have meant a different insect altogether. " Pmce- 

 denti affinis at paullo minor," he says. But the preceding species 

 is not, as one might expect, epiplifon; it is pyrrha, F. (= manto, 

 Esp.) ; and I think that any one acquainted with the smaller 

 forms of manto transitional to var. pyrrliula, Frey, which occurs 

 in the Austrian Tyrol, and generally in the higher alps of the 

 East, would not find it hard to square Fabricius's cassiope with 

 some forms of that extremely variable species {cp. Mr. Lowe's 

 remarks on Erehia manto, and its Varieties, antea, p. 145). 



Dr. F. J. Buckell, who deals with the subject at some length 

 in his admirable study of 'Erebia Epiphron and its Named 

 Varieties ' (Ent. Eecord, vol. v. pp. 161-165), hazards no 

 suggestion of this possibility. He does not mention the fact 

 that Fabricius associated his cassiope with manto — the type form 

 of which butterfly is surely so entirely different in appearance, and 

 everything else — habits and flight — from our " Small Mountain 

 Einglet." For whereas in my experience cassiope is on the move 

 only when the sun is shining, manto will fly even on the greyest 

 days. Dr. Buckell may, indeed, have been unacquainted with 

 the forms of manto in the eastern alps. 



We know, then, what we mean by cassiope in Britain and 

 Ireland. What we want to make sure of is what Continental 

 authors and collectors mean by male epiphron in contradistinc- 

 tion to the male of the so-called variety. 



