EREBIA EPIPHRON, KNOCK. 223 



species by the publication of Edward Newman's description of 

 the first authentic Scotch examples received from Richard 

 Weaver. His identification of them with Erehia melajiqms, 

 Boisd. (' Zoologist,' 1847, pp. 1730-31) was, of course, an error, 

 and this is corrected on the high authority of Henry Doubleday 

 in the * Catalogue of British Lepidoptera,' published in December, 

 1846, by Messrs. J. R. Hawley and A. J. Guns, to which I shall 

 refer when I deal with the circumstances of the discovery, and 

 the records of Cassiope in the United Kingdom. The Weaver 

 specimens, sent for confirmation to Boisduval, came back, as 

 might be expected, with the opinion that they were "distinct 

 from the Erehia melampus of the Continent," though the doctor 

 does not appear to have enlightened his correspondent to the 

 extent of identifying them with Cassiope, Fabr. 



Seven years later the whole question of separate specific 

 identity is examined scientifically by Meyer-Diir (' Verz. der 

 Schmett. der Schweiz., Abtheil 1, Tagfalter, Burdorf-Zurich, 

 1851, pp. 151-154), When writing this work he tells us that 

 he received from Standfuss two Epiphron males from the Harz, 

 and three males of a similar Erehia from the Altvater in Silesian 

 Moravia. Comparing them with the Swiss Cassiope, he says, 

 ''Epiphron belongs undoubtedly to the sj^ecies under review, and 

 is placed, therefore, under the forms of Cassiope in the following 

 arrangement : 



" Cassiope var. (a) Bernensis, on the highest Bernese Alps, 



7500-9000 m. 

 (6) Valesiaca (Freyer, Taf. 20, F. 1, 2), from 



Mayenwand, and the Alps of the Wallis, 



5800-6500 m. 

 (c) Epiphron, Harz, from 1800-8000 m. 

 (f?) Silesiana, Altvater at 4600 m." 



and these conclusions at least establish my proposition that 

 there is no specific, or even superficial constant, difference 

 between the males of Cassiope and Epiphron, though Meyer-Diir, 

 having come to this decision, should have used Enoch's name in 

 preference to that of Fabricius, which would have been the case 

 most probably had the white-pupilled females been included in 

 the series. It will be observed, however, that all the German 

 examples examined by him were males, and that the ocellations 

 were evidently without white pupils, or he would certainly have 

 said so. 



His var. Valesiaca, which he associates at a guess with 

 Haworth's Mnevion {" die ich aus Autopsie nicht kenne "), he 

 considers also as practically identical with Epiphron. It is 

 described by Canon Favre * as " larger than the type [Cassiope), 

 with numerous black spots on the rusty band, which is confluent 



* ' Macro-16pidopteres der Valais,' Schaffhausen, 1899. 



