158 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Museum Collection. 4a is a fine figure in which the outward 

 branch of the vein (Oberthur's line) is clearly shown. Other- 

 wise it is not to be distinguished, or the male figure either, from 

 the Sicilian form of Galatea, and as Lucas did not differentiate 

 this Algerian butterfly as other than a form or geographical race 

 of Galatea, Rambur's later name stands by right of priority. 



I have compared the respective series of Galatea and Lucasi 

 in the South Kensington, and find it extremely difficult to 

 separate the two by M. Oberthiir's direction of the fork on the 

 nervure nearest the inner margin which I call Oberthur's line; 

 i. e. the fork of the Y in Galatea turning inwards, in Lucasi 

 outwards. 



It is somewhat remarkable that M. Oberthiir omits to men- 

 tion M. Daniel Lucas's description of the egg, larva, and pupa 

 of M. lucasi, which appeared in the ' Ann. Ent. Soc. France ' 

 (vol. Ixxv, p. 29 et seq.), accompanied by an excellent figure 

 (pi. iii, figs. 8, 8a, 8h) of the larva when full-fed, and of the 

 pupa. He says that he had no difficulty in rearing them on 

 various kinds of grasses; the ova laid by a hving female in 

 June, 1904, hatching out in July, and the young larvae, which 

 stopped feeding in November, resuming the following March. 

 By the end of April they were full-fed, and pupation took place. 



His description of the larva might serve for that of Galatea, 

 the green form : " Eobe vert, ligne dorsale d'un vert fonce ; 

 sous-dorsale d'un vert un peu plus fonce que la robe. Au dessus 

 des stigmates on remarque deux lignes de meme couleur que 

 les sous-dorsales. La region abdominale et les fausses pattes 

 membraneuses d'un vert-bleu plus fonce que celui de la robe. 

 Stigmates indiques par des points noirs tres apparents sur les 

 premiers, quatrieme, cinq., sept., huit., neuve., dix., et onzieme 

 anneaux." 



Attention is also drawn to the rose-coloured appendices or 

 anal spikes, and we shall all agree with M. Lucas in his con- 

 clusion that the resemblance in form and characters of the larva, 

 the colour, the dis))Osition of the anal spikes tend to confirm 

 M. lucasi as a late Darwinian form of M. galatea, a conclusion 

 generally supported by the very slight differences which separate 

 the insects in the perfect state. 



Seitz, who has otherwise been singularly unfortunate in his 

 diagnosis of so many of the palfearctic Satyrine butterflies, ranks 

 Lucasi no higher than a form of Galatea; and the author of the 

 descriptions of other members of this group blindly follows the 

 classification of Staudinger. Indeed, in this, as in many other 

 respects, I wonder why so many British entomologists also 

 desert the safer and sounder index compiled by the late W. F. 

 Kirby, whose nomenclature is nearly always based on patient 

 study of the authorities, and should satisfy the most avid of 

 priority hunters. 



