Erebia palarica and Erebia stygne t 17 



So if palarica were a variety of stygne, one would expect 

 to find the clasp large proportionally, instead of, as it is, 

 just the same size. The ^ appendages also differ a little, 

 especially a hemispherical hollow is rugose in palarica, 

 much smoother in stygne, but I know so little of these 

 appendages, not even the names of the several parts, that 

 I can give no opinion as to the value of the difference, nor 

 have I examined examples enough to know whether they 

 are constant. 



Palarica being thus differentiated from stygne, one for 

 the moment forgets the many points of resemblance, 

 especially the close resemblance of the appendages, and 

 the general scheme of colour and markings. In both these 

 respects even, it is. however, more distinct from stygne 

 than euryale is from ligea, or nerine is from melas (not 

 lefebvrei, which is a very different thing). Are all the 

 other Spanish forms of stygne, stygne, or are any of them 

 palarica ? When in the field I thought that palarica was 

 possibly an extreme form of bejarensis trusting merely to 

 memory, the two points of large size, and dissociation from 

 evias in which they agreed carried too much weight. A 

 mere glance at the specimens when together is enough to 

 show that bejarensis and all the others are stygne, bejar- 

 ensis is certainly extreme, but pciialane, though differing 

 in some directions, is fairly intermediate between bejarensis 

 and hispanica. 



I am not sure that 1 have not too much laboured the 

 distinctions between •palarica and stygne, as it would not 

 surprise me to find that a majority of Rhopalocerists, 

 looking at the specimens in my boxes, where the constancy 

 of the two forms in good series is so manifest, and theii 

 facies so different, would off-hand say they are unquestion- 

 ably distinct. 



The small stygne of the Puerto de Pajares is intermediate 

 between what I take to be typical stygne and the var. 

 liispaniea. I do not think it enough removed from either 

 to require a varietal name, though it is a fine, large, bright 

 form, and is rather liispaniea if a name be necessary. 



The keynote of E. stygne, var. liispaniea, was its ap- 

 proximation in size and markings to a form of evias that 

 met it half-way in this respect, and that flew along with it 

 I believe Mrs. Nicholl's specimens in the B. M. show that 

 stygne and evias are similarly associated at the Picos de 

 Europa, they ought therefore to be similarly associated at 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1905 — PART I. (MAY) 2 



