180 Mr. Homy -T. Turner on Ihr Bultcrflicfi nf Cyprus. 



inorc abundant, also in tho plains, hut I have also taken 

 this species rarely on Troiklos during June and July." — 

 (I.F.W., 1918. 



This common Mediterranean species, to which between 

 thirty and forty varietal and aberrational names have 

 been applied and more suggested, is a very difficult one to 

 deal with. The name crameri Btlr., has now authori- 

 tatively replaced the name helia Or. et auct., by the 

 decision of the British Nomenclature Committee. 



Dr. Verity in " Rhop. Pal.," pp. 174-5, divides the various 

 races into two groups which he designates the ausonia 

 Hb., and the occidentalis Vrty., groups. The former, to 

 which the Cyprian race belongs, he diagnoses by the fol- 

 lowing comparative characters. Apex of fore-wing wide ; 

 hind margin slightly convex; markings black powdered 

 with white scales giving a more or less grey appearance ; 

 the discal spot at the end of the cell narrow and generally 

 of an irregular S shape ; the costa with few if any striations ; 

 the underside of the hind-wing bright green, distinctly 

 bordered wath more or less yellow, generally more, and 

 very irregular in contour with a tendency for the white 

 spaces to become marked and suffused with yellow, in 

 fact it is aptly remarked that the bands and spots of 

 white are so indefinite and irregular in shape as to be 

 scarcely capable of definite description ; and finally the 

 white has the tendency to a nacreous appearance in only 

 one or two of the earliest specimens to emerge. 



The ausonia group is made up of races from Asia Minor 

 (Smyrna is the locality of the type of crameri), S. Russia, 

 the Balkans, Greece, and S. Italy, including Sicily. 



The dates of capture of my Cyprian specimens are 

 (eighteen different dates) from February 13th to May 14th. 

 The longest gap betweeii the dates, being of twenty days 

 between March 25th and April 11th, is probably approxi- 

 mately the time between the two broods. All the specimens 

 come from Nicosia in the middle of the central plain and 

 from Aghirda just at the foot of the northern range of 

 mountains. 



When the specimens are arranged according to date of 

 cajiture the two extremes arc easily separable by numerous, 

 characters, particularly by those on the underside of the 

 hind-wing. The specimens of the latest dates are very 

 decidedly yellow on the hind-wang below w^ith a minimum 

 of green, the apex of the fore-wing being yellow only; the 



