April 1895-] 



PSYCHE. 



■>i\ 



Hecla in these specimens diH'ers from 

 Meadii bv exhibiting less tendency to 

 extension of the darlv border inward at 

 costa and at internal angle : in Meadii., 

 the color-pattern is salient and aggres- 

 sive ; in Hecla., stationary or retrograde. 



The color on veins crossing dark 

 border (jl primarv seems to he a fluctu- 

 ating and indecisive character. A ten- 

 dency to show yellow scales on the 

 veins of anterior part of border is some- 

 what prevalent in Meadii. while in 

 Hecla more commonly than in Meadii 

 the posterior part of wing also exhibits 

 yellow veining on the bordei'. The 

 present material indicates that when 

 the yellow veining occurs in Hecla it 

 will generally be somewhat uniformly 

 presented throughout the border, but in 

 Meadii usually predominant toward 

 apex. 



The male of Elis approaches that of 

 Meadii so closely that individuals of 

 the former can be found which scarcely 

 seem to ditler tangibly from the latter: 

 by a vague contrast in general appear- 

 ance they part from Meadii and iden- 

 tify themselves with Elis. This some- 

 what elusive difleience between closely 

 similar individuals of contiguous species 

 is difficult of analysis. Adjoining spe- 

 cies are most readily discriminated as 

 unities, by the opposition or unlikeness 

 of the entire systems or combinations of 

 pattern, containing in pait closely 

 similar or identical elements, and in 

 part alien elements. A large series of 

 each tends to manifest the entire 

 amount of alienation separating each 

 species from its nearest allies. Single 



individuals are at best imperfectly rep- 

 resentative ; being themselves special- 

 ized fragments, they merely represent 

 what the species would be if similarly 

 specialized throughout. In estimating 

 the relation between adjacent species 

 adequate series should be examined. 

 Safe conclusions cannot be drawn from 

 comparison of isolated examples imtil 

 the representative value of those exam- 

 ples has been ascertained. Individuals 

 are typical or divergent: in the latter 

 case, if divergent in the direction of the 

 proximate species they express in 

 relation to that species less than a 

 tj'pical amount of alienation ; if diver- 

 gent in a direction leading away from 

 the proximate species, they exhibit rela- 

 tively to it a degree of alienation (bio- 

 logical estrangement) which is greater 

 than the typical contrast. From this it 

 follows that individuals which have a 

 more than typical degree of divergence 

 from each other, representing adjacent 

 species, will over-contrast those species, 

 and on the other hand, unusually 

 approximate examples in contiguous 

 species will under-contrast the two 

 species. In species so near of kin as 

 Eli.'i and Meadii, the most close!}' 

 resemblant examples are exactly those 

 which are least representative of the 

 characters peculiar to their respective 

 species, and most highly representative 

 of characters common to the several 

 closely allied species. Elis being 

 greatly more variable than Meadii, the 

 closest approximation between them is 

 on the part of exceptional males of 

 Eli.':. It may be said that Meadii as 



