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XI. Notes oil the genus Erebia. By Heney J. Elwes, 

 F.L.S., F.Z.S., &c. 



[Read February 6tb, 1889.] 



With the object of making the butterflies of the palfe- 

 arctic fauna better known to English entomologists, I 

 have in recent years reviewed the genera Colias and 

 Parnassius, and I now propose to make some remarks on 

 the genus Erehia, which is, on account of its tendency 

 to great variation and remarkable distribution, a most 

 interesting and at the same time difficult genus. 



Though our knowledge of many of the Arctic and 

 Asiatic species is still too slight to make a monograph of 

 the genus possible, yet so many additions have been 

 made to the Erebias in the last ten or twelve years, by 

 Eussian collectors especially, that a large number of 

 species are not included in Staudinger's Catalogue of 

 1870. Another reason for revising this genus is that a 

 paper on it, by Herr von Gumppenberg, has appeared in 

 the last number of the * Stettiner Entomologische 

 Zeitung,' which does not seem to be founded on a good 

 knowledge of any but the European species; and as this 

 arrangement of the genus is, in my opinion, not so 

 natural as that of Staudinger, it should not be allowed 

 to pass without criticism. At the same time I wish to 

 show that some of the varieties which are defined by 

 short Latin descriptions, both by Von Gumj)penberg and 

 Staudinger, cannot, in my opinion, be so defined as to 

 include many specimens which occur. 



It very frequently happens both in this and other genera 

 that a number of variations exist which are not constant, 

 and though it is sometimes possible to limit and define 

 them in words, yet more often the attempt to make 

 such a key to the genus as has been attempted by Von 

 Gumppenberg, proves a failure when applied to a large 

 number of specimens. 



Though keys have been of late years very much in 

 fashion among ornithologists, and are now being adopted 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND, 1889. — PART II. (jUNE.) 



