212 A CATALOGUE OF THE LEPIDOPTERA OF 



Var. Papilio Artaxerxes, Fah. Ent. SijstA. 297. — Hilh. Pap. 

 951-954. — Haw. Lep. Brit. 47. — Don. Brit. Ins. xvi. 1, 

 pi. 54:1.— Wood Ind. Ent. t. 3, / 74, and 13. Polyom- 

 matus Artaxerxes, Steph. Illust. Haust. i. 95. — Staint, 

 Man. i. 61. 

 Ever since the late Mr. Stephens described the variety named 

 by him Salmacis, from specimens which I gave him in 1831, it 

 has been matter of controversy whether the Southern Agestis, our 

 variety Sahnacis, and the Scotch Artaxerxes^ were to be consi- 

 dered as really three distinct species, or as forming two, or only 

 one, and if two, to which of them ours was to be attached. 

 Various theories and speculations have been hazarded both to 

 unite and to separate them; but they appear in the British 

 Museum list as all three distinct, and in the others. Continental 

 as well as British, Agestis and Artaxerxes are kept apart. It is 

 only after much consideration and the consultation of all the au- 

 thorities I have access to, as well as the communications of 

 some of our best Lepidopterists in distant and distinct parts of 

 England and Scotland, that I have ventured to unite them as 

 above. The discovery and careful comparison of specimens or 

 trustworthy drawings of the larvge of all the three can alone 

 finally and surely settle the point. That of Artaxerxes we owe 

 to the patient researches of Mr. Logan, who found it feeding on 

 the Heliantliemwn vulgare, growing on Arthur's Seat, near Edin- 

 burgh (its original locality), and reared the perfect insect whose 

 transformations will most appropriately form the subject of the 

 first plate of his forthcoming " Illustrations of Scottish Lepi- 

 doptera." That of the type Agestis has been figured by 

 Mr. Westwood, in his " British Butterflies;" and, in reply to my 

 inquiries, he states it must have been co2)ied from some work, of 

 which he had forgotten the particulars. Mr. Harding, a well- 

 known collector and close observer, who alone seems to have 

 bred Agestis in Britain, informs me that he has, on several occa- 

 sions, taken its larva on the coast of Kent, feeding on Ero- 

 dium cicutarium; and that, when in 1857, Mr. Logan showed 

 him a coloured drawing of that of Artaxerxes, he was of opinion 

 tliat tliey were different. On the contrary, Mr. Logan writes 



