246 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



In 1906 the Editor of the 'Entomologist,' Mr. Eichard 

 South, continues the arrangement ah-eady recognised hy his 

 contemporaries in ' The Butterflies of the British Isles,' treating 

 Cassiope as a variety, and concluding that all the British examples 

 of the " small mountain ringlet " examined by him are referable 

 to the form known as Cassiope. 



But if, at; the close of the nineteenth century, there existed 

 any reasonable doubt of the identity of the two butterflies, it 

 should have been dispelled by the structural researches instituted 

 by Dr. T. A. Chapman (' Transactions of the Entomological 

 Society of London,' 1898, pp. 209-239). In "A Review of the 

 Genus Erehia, based on an Examination of the Male Appen- 

 dages," read before the Society on February 16th, 1898, he says, 

 passim (p. 213) : 



" These ' Grass Brebias ' are those that puzzle one in tbe field 

 and even in the cabinet perhaps, more than any others. It is there- 

 fore very satisfactory to find that the forms of the clasp are quite 

 distinct in the nine species, and especially that they are most markedly 

 so in precisely those species that are most frequently confused, or 

 likely to be so. Thus . . . E. epiphron and E. christi might be 

 confounded, but the clasp is very different." And, a little further on 

 (p. 218), examining in detail the genital armature of the first men- 

 tioned, he continues — " E. epiphron (plate viii, fig. 7) : The clasp of 

 the species with which Cassiope, Nelanms, and the other named forms 

 agree, has a slight fulness preceding the neck. The neck and head 

 are rather less than a third of the total length of the clasp, the styles 

 being numerous, very small, and of tolerably uniform size. In Nelavms 

 the clasp is slightly shorter and the basal styles more frequently 

 somewhat longer."* 



It is, of course, incontestable that, in the words of M. 

 Oberthiir (' Lepid. Comparee,' fasc. vii, p. 208), "deux especes 

 differentes par d'autres characteres peuvent avoir une meme 

 armature genitale," but enough has been written already to 

 identify EpipJiron and Cassiope specifically on other grounds, 

 their habits and bionomics in all their stages, though I believe 

 no one has yet reported having bred the two forms from the 

 same batch of ova or larvae, as _years ago Buckler settled the 

 identity of Aricia medon and its vars. Artaxerxes and Salmacis. 



With the weight of Dr. Chapman's authority behind him, 

 and with the record of excellent work done by other British and 

 continental lepidopterists, it is melancholy to find in Dr. Adalbert 

 Seitz's ' Die Gross-schmetterlinge der Erder,' Stuttgart, 1909, 

 that Herr von G. Eiffinger has made a regular hash of so many 

 of the Erebias. Apparently he is ignorant of, or has not taken 

 the trouble to refer to, the several papers in the ' Transactions ' 



* Plate vii, fig. 7. — E. epiphron : c, clasp (Chamonix) ; d, clasp (Germany). 

 Var. Cassiope (Sau Alpe) : «, tegumen ; b, clasp somewhat flattened. Var. Nelanms 

 (Campfer, Engadine) : e, tegumen ; /, clasp ; g, clasp. 



