668 Dr. T. A. Chapman on an 



Accepting thersites therefore as the name of my butterfly, 

 I may in other respects resume my paper as first written. 

 The only name that I found to require consideration 

 was alexins of Freyer. The name is founded on a butterfly 

 taken at, or near, Weimar, and studied for many years, 

 some two-and- twenty apparently, by Herr Ministerial- 

 Registrator Schreiner, and asserted by him to be a good 

 species and to have nothing to do with icants, icarinus, 

 thersites, etc. Some of his grounds for this opinion do not 

 appeal to me, such as the darker ground-colour beneath, 

 the brighter marginal spots, and so on, though on the 

 authority of so close an observer as Herr Schreiner 

 obviously was, these differences no doubt marked the 

 local race of alexins, in comparison with the local form 

 of icariis, and were not without value. The circumstances 

 that led me, however, to believe that Herr Schreiner's 

 species was not icarinus, but one we are considering, is 

 first, the fact that it occurred in some numbers, not as 

 a sporadic variety of anything else ; then, the fact that 

 Herr Schreiner often found alexins paired with alexins, 

 but never with icarus. That our species occurs at 

 Weimar is most probable, as I have a specimen labelled 

 " Saxe," which is practically the same district. 



Herr Schreiner notes one fact that does not accord 

 with the, certainly somewhat meagre, information I have 

 as to other areas, he says that alcxiics does not appear in 

 either the first or second brood, till the corresponding 

 brood of alexis has been long on the wing. 



We must also attach some little weight to the opinion 

 of Herr Schreiner who was unquestionably a good student, 

 who considered the species to be distinct, after noting it 

 for fifteen years, and after seven years' further observations 

 in view of Freyer's scepticism and doubts, felt sure his 

 opinion was correct. 



I cannot resist the conclusion that this butterfly of 

 Schreiner's is the same species as the one I find to be 

 unrecognised, and confounded with F. icarus ab. icarinus. 

 Herr Schreiner's grounds for believing it to be distinct do 

 not seem to have convinced entomologists since, because 

 of course the facts he brings forward were by no means 

 conclusive ones to any one who had not a belief in Herr 

 Schreiner's intuition in such matters. 



Freyer's figure is not unquestionably distinctive of the 

 species in one point, I shall allude to later, the position 



