ON ARGYNNIS ATOSSA EDWARDS 



BY KARL R. COOLIDGE 



Argynnis atossa was first described by W. H. Edwards in his Butterflies 

 of North America, Vol. 3, 1890, the types (Plate VIII) coming from 

 Tehachapi, California, at an elevation of about 4000 feet. I am not aware 

 that any additional captures have been recorded in literature, although Hol- 

 land (Butterfly Book) figures a male on Plate XIII, which is presumably one 

 of the types. Mr. W. G. Wright* states that "atossa is a species that I have 

 never met, although I have hunted over the ground where it is said to fly, 

 both before and after it was found." 



The peculiar yellowish coloring of atossa above, the dimidiation of the 

 anterior marginal line and of the usual marginal and discal spots are indeed 

 striking, and with its pallidness of the undersurface and lack of silver spots 

 on the secondaries beneath, it has been placed close to adiaste Behr, with 

 which, however, I fail to see that it has any special affinity. 



In June, 1905, Mr. Fordyce Grinnell, Jr., took an argynnid on Mt. Pinos, 

 at about 5000 feet altitude, which is absolutely referable to the published 

 figvires of atossa. Mt. Pinos is about a hundred miles in an air line from 

 Tehachapi. The example was taken in company with eurynome Edwards, then 

 flying commonly, and of which I am convinced that atossa is but an extreme 

 pallid individuant, not worthy of even aberrational rank. The eurynome 

 markings are distinctly traceable and, moreover, Wright says of macaria 

 Edwards, which with laura Edwards, I take to be synonyms of eurynome; 

 "There is a peculiar feature in nujcaria that does not appear in any other 

 California Argynnis, namely, that in some specimens there is a paling or 

 fading out of the basal part of all wings from the body half way across the 

 wings. . . . This feature is seen in about one-third of the specimens of 

 macaria that I have ever seen." Recently in conversation with Mr. Wright 

 he informed me that he had, through correspondence, learned the exact 

 habitat of atossa and had searched assiduously for it, but without success. 

 The chaotic state of some of our rhopalocerous genera, such as Argynnis, 

 Melitaea, Lycaena, Thccia, and worst of all Pamphila, is due to the fact that 

 too little attention has been paid to precise and exact data, and from the 

 publication of species without sufficient geographical series. A. clio Edwards, 

 bischofH Edwards, opis Edwards, and artonis Edwards, will all probably 

 prove to be but geographical forms of eurynome. A. launna Wright is a pallid 

 individuant of etirynome, {laura), somewhat corresponding to atossa. 



•Butt. West Coast, pp. 139. 141, 1905. 



