172 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



flies as follows : — " These specimens have a wonderful similarity 

 to Urticce, which they do not at all exceed in size ; still the 

 colour is nearer to that of Polycldoros than that of Urticce ; and 

 the black spot at the anal angle of the fore wing is present, as in 

 Polycldoros ; the white spot on the costa of Urticce is absent, also 

 as in PolijcJdoros." Some of these specimens were presented to 

 Mr. Newman, and, as we are informed by Mr. B. T. Lowne, are 

 now in the collection of the Entomological Club.— Ed.] 



During the discussion which followed the paper the President, 

 Mr. Raphael Meldola, stated that Mr. White's query was, in his 

 opinion, very suggestive, but he was disposed to think that it 

 was hardly based upon a sufficiently broad view of the true 

 state of affairs with respect to the genus under consideration. 



The facts are that our native " Tortoiseshells " are repre- 

 sentatives of a genus comprising about two dozen or more 

 species ranging throughout Europe, Asia, and North and South 

 America ; or, in other words, throughout the greater portion of 

 the Palaearctic, Nearctic, Neotropical, and Oriental zoological 

 regions. Now V. Polycldoros and V. Urticce are two of a group 

 of species more or less resembling them in colour and marking, 

 this group being linked by a large number of intermediate forms 

 with our C-alhiim or "Comma" butterfly. He had thought the 

 matter of sufficient interest to draw up the following list of 

 species, showing the transition in question : — 



V. C-album Europe, N. and W. Asia. 



V. I-album Asia Minor, S. Europe. 



V. V-cdbiun Asia Minor, S.Europe. 



V. Calif ornica California. 



y. FolijcMoros Europe, Asia. 



V. Xcmthoinelas E. Europe, N. India. 



V. Cashmirensis N. India. 



V. Urticce Europe, W. Asia. 



1'. Milberti S. America. 



These were only a few of the more striking transitional forms 

 selected for the purpose of illustrating the argument. 



In the language of evolution we should therefore say that the 

 genus Vanessa was in a very complete state of phyletic preserva- 

 tion, i.e., all the species having diverged from a common ancestor, 

 the various steps in the process of divergence, instead of having 

 become extinct and leaving large gaps between the species, as so 



