THE ATHALIA GHOUP OF THE GENUS BIELIT^A. 181 



same time I took one specimen of dictynna, rather lighter than 

 the average, and slightly smaller in size, but considerably larger 

 than the largest of my other captures ; moreover, this specimen 

 was quite worn out, whereas the others were very fresh. The 

 under side precluded the possibility of any other species than 

 dictynna or britomartis ; the upper side appeared to me to put 

 the former out of the question. July, 1906, found me again at 

 the same spot, and again this Melitcea appeared, a few males on 

 the 14th, both sexes commonly on the 23rd, not only on its 

 former ground but also on both sides of the main road. On 

 comparing my specimens with the Silesian examples labelled 

 britomartis in the Berne Museum, they appeared to be identical. 

 At the end of June, 1907 — a very late season — I again visited 

 the spot, and found the remains of an earlier brood ; a few males 

 and a fair number of females were, however, in very passable 

 condition. These were much larger than the specimens taken 

 in the two former years, and mostly approached closely to athalia 

 on the upper side, the under side again being close to dictynna, 

 and presenting the black spots in the outer dark band which we 

 usually regard as characteristic of the latter species. Unfortu- 

 nately all the females which I kept with a view to eggs failed to 

 oblige, and in fact proved to have laid all their eggs already ; 

 whilst others of the later brood which I had kept the previous 

 year refused to lay in captivity, probably because I had not hit 

 upon their proper food-plant, though I provided them with 

 scabious and plantain, on the latter of which aurelia lays freely. 

 Eggs which I obtained by dissection after the death of these 

 second- brood specimens were unfortunately so shrivelled by the 

 time they arrived in England that even Mr. Tonge was unable 

 to produce very intelligible photographs of them. 



Judging from the imago, I feel sure that the Reazzino speci- 

 mens are, as I originally supposed, britomartis, the only alterna- 

 tives being that they are a form of dictynna or a new species. 

 The upper sides and certain other peculiarities appear to me to 

 preclude the former, and there is as yet no reason to imagine 

 the latter. They are certainly much closer to Assmann's speci- 

 men than to any other species. One very general, though not 

 absolutely constant, peculiarity is the somewhat conspicuous 

 angulation of the fore wing about a third of the way down the 

 outer margin ; this is very conspicuous in Assmann's example. 

 Another objection to the dictynna theory is the fact that the 

 Reazzino Melitcea is undoubtedly double-brooded. This is not 

 the case with dictynna even much further south. It may of 

 course be urged that Assmann only mentions one brood of brito- 

 martis, but this is north instead of south of the Alps, and he 

 never suggests that he had even looked for a second brood ; his 

 mention of its appearance being earlier than that of athalia 

 points at any rate to the possibility of a second brood, and his 



