242 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



EBEBIA EPIPHRON, ENOCH: ITS SYNONYMY AND- 



FORMS. 

 By H. Roavland-Brown, M.A., F.E.S. 



(Continued from p. 225.) 



Probably H. von Heinemann (and H. F. Wocke) had already 

 completed the first volume of ' Die Schmetterlinge Deutschlands 

 under der Schweitz,' published at Brunswick in 1859, when the 

 brothers Speyer's book was issued. At all events Cassiojje (36)' 

 and Epiphron (37) still rank as species, though the distinguishing 

 characters are no longer defined as the eye-spots, but extend to 

 the shape of the fore wings noted by Lederer, which are- 

 described as rounded at the apex in the case of the former and 

 sharply angled in the case of the latter. His opinion of their 

 specific identity, however, is not omitted. 



The tradition of the double species, indeed, was destined to 

 die hard, and was perpetuated by many other authors both at 

 home and abroad during the "fifties" and " sixties" and even 

 in the " nineties." In England, Henry Doubleday makes 

 Cassiope, Fab., the type of the genus " Erehia, Boisd., Oreina,^ 

 West.," with Mnemon, Haw., and Melamims, Newm., var., as 

 synonyms {cp. ' Synonymic List of British Lepidoptera,' 1850). 

 In 1852 or 1853 Dr. J. C. Kayser (' Deutschlands Schmet- 

 terlinge,' Leipzig), without figuring them, separates Epiphrony 

 Knoch, from Cassiope, and repeats without discrimination of sex 

 the " oft gekernten Augen." But as he announces August the 

 month for the perfect insect in each case, it may be suggested 

 that he, too, derived his knowledge of this Erehia in a state of 

 Nature secondhand. A few years later, again, Menetries 

 ('Lepidoptera Diurna,' St. Petersburg, 1855), anticipating von 

 Heinemann, puts the cart before the horse with " 687 Cassiope, 

 688 Epiphron.'''' H. T. Stainton also (' Manual of British Butter- 

 flies,' vol. i, pp. 29-31) gives Cassioye specific rank without the 

 author's name appended. But Stainton does not recognise 

 apparently even the most pronounced variations from the type 

 as to be treated separately, much less awarded varietal names. 



Werneburg, too, maintains the type form and the variety aa 

 separate species in 1864 (' Beitrage zur Schmetterlingskunde,' 

 p. 21). But Berce (' Faune Entomologique Francaise, Papillons 

 [Lepidopteresj .' vol. i, pp. 86-87, Paris, 1867) appreciates their 

 true relationship and writes : 



" Cette esp6ce habite les montaignes du nord de I'Allemagne, et si 

 nous la mentionnons ici, c'est que nous avons pris sur les hauts 

 sommets des Vosges avec la var. Gassiopie des individus qui ne 

 different enrien de ceux que nouspossedons du nordde I'Allemagne." 



* " Some . . . have been separated generically under the name of Oreina, 

 Westw., but I can find no character which justifies their separation from Erebia, 

 and even if there were the name is pre-occupied " (Elwes, 'Trans. Ent. Soc 

 London,' 1898, p. 184). 



