﻿NORWEGIAN LEPIDOPTERA. 339 



As far as I could ascertain, the food-plant in Finmark is Draha 

 incana, which is almost the only crucifer I came across there. 



Colias hecla. — This most beautiful species was apparently not 

 out at the time of my visit to Bossekop, where previous observers 

 had found it not uncommon. I was fortunate enough, however, to 

 come across it in great abundance in the open meadows lying on 

 both sides of the river at Laxelv (see Plate xi.), flying swiftly with the 

 customary Colias flight and often settling on and sucking at the 

 flowers of Astragalus al])'i,nus, which to my surprise I found to be 

 the food-plant of the larva, and which thus in addition furnishes 

 the imago with sustenance. It will be remembered that last year 

 I found the food-plant of the other arctic species of this genus 

 C. nastes at Abisko to be A. alpinus also. The imago, especially the 

 male, by its swift low flight amongst the plants of Vaccinium, 

 Empetnmi, &c., which grow in its habitat, soon gets damaged, and 

 on the day on which I first came across it, July 11th, I had to 

 exercise a good deal of selection to get good specimens. Ova were 

 plentiful, and I now have larvae hibernating in the third stage. 



The series of about one hundred examples I brought home is a 

 very variable one ; the males vary in size from 42-50 mm., and the 

 females from 44-54 mm. 



On looking over the European series in the National Collection I 

 find that a few of the males have a rosy sufl'usion on the upper 

 sides of all the wings, similar to that which is found in some male 

 Colias edusa ; in my series fully seventy-five per cent, have this 

 rosy suffusion, which is very pronounced and beautiful in some 

 specimens ; for this form I propose the name rosea, n. ab. The 

 ground colour of the male varies very much, the majority are of a 

 rich red orange, but a few are of a much lighter orange tint, not 

 darker than in typical C. edusa, whilst one example has the entire 

 upper side of the brown colour of typical male C. heldreichi, the 

 darker margins being brown, also of a darker tint ; this specimen is, 

 however, not freshly emerged, and one suspects abnormal conditions 

 after emergence have caused what is certainly a remarkable form. 



There is a tendency in some of the males for the light veins 

 crossing the dark margins to be reduced in number and distinctness, 

 some specimens being entirely without them ; there are examples 

 in the National Collection of this form labelled Kvickjock, and 

 Lapland ; a suitable name for it appears to be ab. supp-essa, n. ab. 

 Professor Aurivillius who is responsible for the European specimens 

 being named var. sulitehua, has only described the female as " above 

 rather more vivid in tint, brown or sometimes rose-flushed, much less 

 suffused with black." He does not mention some of the most 

 characteristic features of this sex, for instance, the prominent light 

 blotches in the dark marginal band, described by Lefebvre in ' An- 

 nales de la Societe Entomologique de France,' tome v., p. 386 — the 

 original description of C. hecla — to be seven in number in the front, 

 and four on the hind wings, and therefore one can only assume that 

 as Aurivillius does not distinguish var. sulitelma from the type in 

 this respect, he did not notice the difi'erence. My Porsanger examples 

 have almost all seven pale blotches on the superiors, though one has 

 six, and another only five ; but the whole of them have six blotches 



