DORITIS; PARNASSIUS. By H. St'ichel. 19 



marginal band of the hindwing is broad, being much shaded with bhie and red, is known as bellargUS Stgr. bellargus. 



(10 c), the base of the hindwing being non-pencilled in the ? and never flushed with red. Syria (Kessab) 



and in an almost identical form in Palestine, in the Cilician Taurus a form transitional to the first described 



one being found. — amasina Stgr. (10 d) is less intensely marked, l^eing recognizable especially by the amasina. 



liindwing bearing a black hook-spot at the apex of the cell; Pontus (Amasia) and East Kurdistan. — In the 



Noi'th-East of Asia Minor, Goman Olti (Pontus, at an altitude of about 1500 m), and in Armenia a usuaUy 



smaller, pale and in both sexes sparsely marked mountain-form occurs, which is moreover characterized by 



a reduced marginal band of the hindwing; tiiis is apollinaris Stgr. (= pallidior Spuler) (lOd); a dwarfed apollinaris. 



form of the ? which is very deeply coloured in contrast to the ordinary form of the ? of this subspecies 



may be called ?-ab. mardina (Stgr. i. I.), under which name it is already known in collections. mardina. 



8. Genus: Paruassiiis Latr.*) 



Mostly larger insects with broad rounded wings; general outline of forewing a rectangular triangle, 

 w'liile the hindwing is almost ovate, its abdominal margin being concave; no anal fold. Antenna short, 

 more or less club-shaped, the shaft being often ringed with white and Ijlack. Head small, frons rough-liairy. 

 Eye large. Palpus short, acute, not projecting above the head. Thorax normal, densely hairy. Abdomen 

 strongly hairy in o"", sparsely covered with hairs or almost without hairs in the ?; on the underside at the 

 apex there is in the ? a horny appendix, the so-called pouch, which originates from a quickly hardening 

 substance discharged by the cf during copulation, the differences in the shape of this pouch being of great- 

 help in distinguishing the species or at least in characterizing the groups of species. Wings white, whitish, 

 rarely j^ellow; distally with black spots and grey or blackish bands; hindwing often bearing red -spotted 

 ocelli. In colour and pattern very variable, it being often rather difficult to decide which forms belong to- 

 gether and which are specifically separate. Many of the known forms have apparently not yet reached that 

 stage of development where they are sufficientl}' constant to be considered species in the usual sense, and 

 therefore the assumption that there obtains habitual hyl)ridisation between specifically different forms of 

 Parnassius must be regarded with great caution. Although copulation between such distinct species has been 

 observed several times, we have no proof of a successful fecundation of one species by another, but only 

 the assumption that this does occur. **) 



The occurrence of Parnassius is restricted especially to mountainous districts. These insects inhabit 

 medium and high altitudes in Europe (except Great Britain) and Asia, certain species ascending as high as 

 6000 m (20000 ft.) in the gigantic mountain -chains of Inner Asia. The flight is generally clumsy and 

 fluttering, during the hot hours unsteady, hurrying, never so easy and elegant as in true Swallowtails. 

 Only when the first warm rays of the sun invite the butterfly to leave its hiding-place and to float from the 

 high ground down into the valley, or when the cp flies up and down the sunny pastures and rocky mountain-sides, 

 searching for a mate or playing, his conduct betrays tlie noble kinship. The Parnassii are visitors of flowers; 

 they sit on the blossom with the wings expanded and ai'e not difficult to catch while sucking the honey, 

 being occasionally, when the weather is unfavorable, or towards evening, so benumbed that they are easily 

 caught with the fingers or even taken oif the flowers with the killing-bottle.***) The butterflies are veiy 

 tenacious of life and recover soon so far, even from a strong pressure of the thorax with the fingers, 

 that they are able to fly again. If one does not really kill the captured specimens by poison (injection), 

 one may hear for hours or even days a lively scratching with the legs on the sides of the paper-envelopes. 

 — The larvae of the Parnassii are cyhndrical, exceptionallv tapering at both ends, diversely developed, 

 but mostly of black colour and variously ornamented; the head is small, almost globular, in the neck a 



*) Tlie genus has lately been divided intu 5 separate genera by F. Moohh (Lepidopt. Indica vol. .5, 1002), namely 

 Parnassius (type /■". apo/lo) , Tadumia (type 2'. acco) , Kailasius (type K. charltuiiiun) , Koramius (type K. delphius), Doritis (type 

 D. mnemosyne). The differential characters of these genera, apart from slight differences in aspect, refer especially to the position 

 and arrangement (fusion) of the subcostals (system II of Spuler), and in tertiary peculiarities (pouch of J)- We abstain from 

 adopting this division, because we do not deem it expedient to split up the well defined and easily recognized collective genus 

 Furnassius, and because the characters in neuration relied upon show rather considerable variability, not only within the .sub- 

 divisions, but also within one and the same species. 



**) Grum-Grshimailo, who at that time explored enfoniologically the mountains of Central Asia for His Imp. Highness 

 the Grand-Duke Nicolai Michailowitsch of Russia , states in "Memoires sur les Lepidopteres" (Romanoff), vol. 4, 1890 , that in 

 the Altai mountains he found several times P. charltoniiis and I', delphius in copula, but did not consider this fact to be of 

 special importance, since he never saw a specimen whose characters proved it to be a hybrid of these two so very different 

 species. — The cause of the copulation may here have been a similar unnatural venereal desire as that which causes the 

 .successive copulation of a 5 with several c/'cf, or the attempt of a copula between two cfcT' of the same species. That these 

 phenomena do occur is proved by the fact that Gr.-Gr. met with a chiirltonius J having two pouches (one of theui being normal, 

 the otlier being placed in front of it transversely), and found o^'o'^ of the same species bearing an abnormal or incompletely 

 developed pouch (conf. Hgures, I. c. t. A. tig. S — .o). — Also the well-known Lepidopterist Ai.phkuaki maintains to have observed, 

 in the Tian-shan mountains, a copulation between P. discobolus and P. hesebolits (which was presumably sibiricus). 



***) By the way, it is not advisable to leave the specimens of Parnassius too long in the Cyanide bottle, as the white 

 (toloui' of the wings is said to assume therein a yellowish tint. 



