b THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Antennae as in athalia, but with even less white edging at the joints 

 above ; beneatli, the white sometimes runs into the side of the tip. 



As the palpi appear to vary it will be best to give Hormuzaki's 

 own description. He says that they are black from above, with 

 occasionally a few red-brown hairs, never with whitish or greyish- 

 yellow hairs, though he has two specimens whose palpi, seen 

 from above, are reddish. The outer side is occasionally red- 

 brown throughout, the terminal joint being generally of this 

 colour, or reddish-yellow, but occasionally black, the middle and 

 lower joints are, however, generally black towards the base, 

 rarely sprinkled with yellow, but the yellow becomes much more 

 noticeable on the middle joint, and towards the terminal joint 

 merges into red-brown. The hair forms a reddish-yellow or 

 black brush towards the end of the middle joint. The inner side 

 of the lower and middle joints is bright yellow but towards the 

 terminal joint generally reddish, though sometimes blackish or 

 red-brown. 



Much stress is laid by Hormuzaki on the elongated shape of 

 the wings and a number of measurements given to show how con- 

 stant is this peculiarity in comparison with athalia ; this is 

 certainly very noticeable in the case of a pair of Bukowina athalia 

 kindly sent to me by him with the dictynnoides, but I possess 

 athalia from the Rhone Valley and the lower Vaudois Alps with 

 wings quite as elongated, especially in the female. The Bukowina 

 examples have a remarkably square and "cobby" appearance, 

 even more so than the mountain specimens from Switzerland. 

 I think that if I were exclusively a " study-lepidopterist " without 

 any " field " experience (such people really do still exist, and even 

 propound theories in more than one European language), I 

 should be inclined on the mere face of things to regard dictynnoides 

 as a very dark form of athalia, but the field knowledge which 

 Hormuzaki brings to bear on the subject puts this theory out of 

 the question ; for he tells us that these are the only two Melitaas 

 of this group that are common in Bukowina and the neighbouring 

 districts ; that dictynnoides, the commoner of the two, is found 

 in some places where athalia is not ; that in others athalia only 

 is found ; but that in many places both occur together. More- 

 over, dictynnoides flies from the beginning of June, or sometimes 

 the end of May, and never later than mid-July, whereas athalia 

 appears about June 30th and continues till near the end of July. 

 With aurelia, with which it is generally placed, it has nothing 

 whatever in common, and even if it had, the case of those who 

 hold this theory would be put out of court by the fact that typical 

 aurelia, differing very little from the Valais form, is also taken 

 at Czernowitz, where it comes out from three weeks to a month 

 later than dictynnoides ; it is, however, scarce, and this is its only 

 known locality in Bukowina. The upper side is certainly near 

 dictynna, but the under side separates it entirely from that species ; 



