5 18 6RITISH LEt>lDOt>TEfcA. 



larger size, noted it from Sicily, and the parts of Italy nearest Pied- 

 mont. Duponchel captured it very commonly near Rome. This variety 

 (? species), with spot 6 ill-developed in the male, appears well distributed 

 in all the warm Alpine valleys. Oberthiir obtains it in the Pyrenees. 

 We have captured it in abundance in Piedmont, Courmayeur, and the 

 Tyrol (Mendel Pass). At Aix-les-Bains the form appears transitional, 

 and we are unable to distinguish between many continental examples 

 and occasional aberrations found in Britain with the type. Fletcher 

 has crossed (Ent; Rec., ix., pp. 69-70) oclisenlieimeri from Courmayeur 

 \viihjilijjendulae from Sussex, and found the progeny perfectly fertile 

 inter se. Some of the hybrid males, however, showed very marked 

 oclisenlieimeri characters. 



fj.. var. ramburii, Led., " Wien. Ent..Monats.," v., pp. 151-152, pi. i., fig. 10 

 (May, 1861) ; H.-Sch., " Neu. Schmett.," iii., p. 32, figs. 161-162 (Jan., 1861, 

 ? ante-dated) ; Stand., " Hor. Soc. Ent. Ross.," 1870, p. 103 ; " Cat.." p. 47 (1871) ; 

 Hofmn.," Die Gross-Schmett.," p. 35 (1887) ; South, Entom.," xxiv., p. 233 (1891) ; 

 Kirby, " Cat. Lep. Het.," p. 71 (1892). A. ramburii varies much, is somewhat 

 smaller than ordinary examples of A. filipendnlae, somewhat blunter-winged 

 (Herrich-Schaffer's figures show this even better than Lederer's), like the alpine var. 

 mannii, which it also resembles in its pale colour. The body and fore-wings steel- 

 blue, the antennee with narrow clubs, and a finer apex. Spots 3 and 4 are, as a 

 rule, confluent, 5 and 6 united into an ill-defined blotch, formed as in A . achillcae, 

 intersected by the darker nervure 5 ; the spots on the underside are united by a 

 red shade. Hind-wings narrow, with a glassy transparent area, at the base of the 

 inner median nervure. Aberrations occur which are remarkable for the greater or 

 less intensity of the red tint, and for the difference in the arrangement of the spots. 

 In one extreme the spots are all separate, 6 very weak or (in one specimen) wanting. 

 In some specimens the basal and central, or even all the spots, are united by longi- 

 tudinal streaks, whilst the extremes in the other direction have the whole wing- 

 surface occupied by the red colour, but the most extreme aberrations in both 

 directions are, relatively, rare. More than 100 specimens collected at Antioch 

 (Lederer). 



Lederer, in spite of the differences here enumerated, suspected that 

 ramburii vf&s only a local form of A.filipendulae,a,nd. the transparent area 

 on the hind-wing, together with the general appearance of the insect, alone 

 decided him to describe it as a species. Herrich-Schaffer describes speci- 

 mens received from Lederer, and states that the difficulty of separating the 

 insect from A. filipendulae becomes greater the more numerous the 

 specimens actually examined. He considers it to be " as a rule, smaller 

 than A. filipendulae, its ground colour darker, bluer, the red thicker, 

 the scaling denser (on the underside the spots are connected by a 

 rather strong red shade), the 6th spot scarcely noticeable, and never 

 placed so far back towards the outer border as in A. filipendulae, so 

 that, on the whole, both pairs of spots appear more approximated. In 

 the form of the wings and width of margin on hind-wings no differ- 

 ence is observable. Of 19 examples compared there are only six 

 females, one with entirely normal markings, another (fig. 162) with 

 completely confluent spots both above and beneath ; between these 

 extremes, however, are a number of transitions in both sexes, in which, 

 first of all, the 2nd and 3rd pairs of spots unite, and then longitudinal 

 rays appear between these and the 1st pair. In one example, 5 is 

 round and placed beside the extremely weak 6." Staudinger diagnoses 

 it as : " Maculis 6 in mac. 3 magnis confluentibus et al. post, miniaceis, 

 Syr. ; Graec. (ab.)," and in the Hor. Ent. Soc. Ross., viii., p. 103, notes 

 examples from the Parnassus and Veluchi as " only differing from 

 ramburii in the different tint of red, which is lighter in the latter," 

 and he adds that " since little importance can be attached to difference 



