214 A CATALOGUE OF THE LEPIDOI'TERA OF 



111 sucli localities Mr. Sang meets witli the perfect insect at 

 Riclimond, in Yorkshire, where the geranium does not grow. 

 At Castle Eden, and along the coast, from Whitburn to Mars- 

 den (in which latter extended locality the geranium is also want- 

 ing, and where, I regret, the insect is nearly extinct from the 

 close feeding of the rocky places where the food plant grows), it 

 seems confined to the spots where the Ilelianthemwn flourishes. 

 Mr. Selby finds the same thing occur about Bamhorough. Cross- 

 ing into Scotland, where the insect seems to assume the Ar- 

 taxerxes form exclusively, so far as the white discoidal spot of 

 the upper wings is concerned, Mr. Hardy takes it on the Lam- 

 mermuir Hills amongst the same plant. On Arthur's Seat it is 

 confined to the place where the plant grows, and I have captured, 

 it between Pitlochrie and Loch Tummel, on rocky hill sides 

 covered with the same gay flower. So also about Stonehaven, 

 in Kincardineshire, its furthest northern locality yet known. 



To return to the question of the differences between these so- 

 called three species, I may observe that Agestis was first indi- 

 cated by Scopoli, in his " Entomologia Carniolica" (17G3), and 

 the female well described as var. 1 of his Alexis. In 1776, the 

 learned Theresians, in their celebrated " Verzeichniss," which to 

 this day remains a monument of philosophic research and 

 acumen, first separated it as a species nnder the name it still 

 bears. In 1779, Bergstrasser, in his " Nomenclatur, &c.," de- 

 scribes and figures it well as Arstarche, drawing especial attention 

 to its close affinity to, if not identity with, the above species of 

 Scopoli and the Vienna authors. Both LinnaBUS and Fabricius 

 seem to have confounded it with other " blues," the specific and 

 sexual distinctions of which were then little understood; and 

 until Hlibner correctly figured both sexes under its proper 

 name, that confusion seems to have more or less prevailed. Al- 

 though Fabricius appears to have been unacquainted with 

 Bcrgstrasser's work, he was evidently aware of the Theresian 

 indication : for, in his " Entomologia Systematica emendata" 

 (1793), he quotes every other species of "blue" given in the 

 " Verzeichniss,'"' and assigns them to what he considered their 

 pmpor places, but omits all reference to Agestis. It is in this, his 



