330 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



tend to vary in the direction of puella. But of course in all 

 their disguises the two species can be readily identified by 

 anatomical characters, such as the form of the posterior margin 

 of the prothorax, and, in the male, the structure of the anal 

 appendages. 



The following are the principal variations which have come 

 to our notice : — 



Male. 



Variation 1. — In discussing the female forms presently, we 

 shall have occasion to mention a specimen in the De Selys- 

 Longchamps Collection without antehumeral blue stripes ; 

 this aberration finds a parallel in the sex now under con- 

 sideration in two very aberrant males which we took in Epping 

 Forest on July 22nd, 1905, and which also lack antehumeral 

 stripes. 



Variation 2. — Notwithstanding De Selys' declaration con- 

 cerning this and some other species that "la repartition du noir 

 sur le premier segment est aussi tres-fixe et d'un grand secours 

 pour la determination," we have found that the basal black spot 

 on segment 1 of the abdomen is liable to some variation both as 

 to shape and size. The posterior edge may be almost straight 

 instead of rounded, and may touch the black ring at the apical 

 suture at one or more points. 



Variation 3. — The U-shaped marking on the second segment 

 may be connected with the posterior circlet, as in yl. pulchellum. 

 In the 'Entomologist' for 1906 (p. 278) we recorded the capture 

 in Epping Forest in that year of four males exhibiting this 

 variation, and in 1907 we took a similar male at Byfleet, Surrey 

 (Entom. xl. p. 213), and another at Hartford, near Huntingdon 

 {ib., p. 257). Mr. E. R. Speyer has been so good as to send us 

 a fine example of the same description taken by himself in a 

 Sussex locality on August 3rd, 1908. Furthermore, Mr. K. J. 

 Morton is kind enough to inform us that he possesses a male 

 of puella from Austria with the second segment marked as in 

 pulchellum, or rather as in ^. ornatum. It appears from a foot- 

 note on pages 165 and 166 of De Selys' Monog. Libell. Eur. 

 that Fonscolombe had lately reported a variety of this kind from 

 Provence, but that De Selys was unacquainted with it, and was 

 not prepared to accept the correctness of Fonscolombe's identi- 

 fication without further investigation. 



In Mr. Speyer's Sussex specimen the connecting longitudinal 

 black line is as strongly marked as it is in normal pulchellum, 

 but in most of the other examples which we have examined the 

 connection has been slender, and has exactly corresponded with 

 a condition not infrequently occurring in pulchellum, in which 

 species the connection varies considerably in strength, and may 

 be wanting altogether. 



