206 Mr. G. T. Bethune-Baker’s Notes on 
have been evolved on the other hand, and that the de- 
scendants of the latter (pheretulus) are orbitulus aquilo, 
pyrenaica and wosnesenskir. 
It appears very much more probable to me that orbitulus 
is the Stirps of this group; the colour is less developed, 
the sexual dimorphism is less marked, and its dominance 
in high altitudes (though mere dominance unaccompanied 
by other points is no sign of primitiveness) makes this 
species more likely to be the primitive race. Groum- 
Grshimailo says, (/. c.) and says rightly, that pheres, Stgr. 
(which hereafter I will call pherecydes), is brighter blue, 
and that pheretulus is darker blue, and he goes on to state 
that in certain of the southern slopes of the Alai Mountains 
the two forms amalgamate, and that it is impossible to 
distinguish the one from the other, whilst almost immedi- 
ately after stating this he proposes the name phereclus 
for the Trans-Alai form. I fear I am quite unable to 
follow his lead in this particular, and shall treat the name 
(phereclus) as Staudinger has done in his 1901 “ Catalog,” 
placing it under pherecydes. Neither can I adopt his 
evolution of the different races: dardanus he makes go 
off directly from phereclus, whilst pyrenaica he considers 
is evolved from orbitulus, which descends from his sug- 
gested primitive phereclus. I have no doubt whatever 
that dardanus and pyrenaica went off directly on the same 
line; the one finding a suitable home in the mountains of 
Asia Minor, the other in the Pyrenees and the mountains 
of Spain. Aegagrus I find by the genitalia to be nearer to 
pheretiades, but the author referred to considers they go 
off from the Stirps in quite divergent lines. 
It will now be well to treat with the forms individually. 
It is probably unnecessary to say that the whole of these 
insects are high Alpine species; orbitulus is too well known 
to need reference. The pheretiades-pherecydes group is 
said by the author already quoted not to occur below 
9,000 feet and to go up to 10,000 feet. Aegagrus occurs 
only in the high mountains of Persia, and jaloka in the 
mountains of Kashmir, and ellis: and leela at an elevation 
of 12,000 and 11,000 feet respectively in the Sanch Pass, 
Pangi and in Ladak, etc.; of these the three last are 
without doubt the same species. 
Taking them in the order they are placed in in 
Staudinger’s “Catalog,” the first form that I make as 
a good species is— 
