THE ATHALIA GROUP OF THE GENUS MELIT^EA. 141 



the bind wing is tolerably good, but the black spots in the dark band 

 are much too near the top of the lunules. The female, though 

 it could not represent any other species, is distinctly bad. It is 

 unfortunate that the description " media bis dissecta " must have 

 been taken from an unusually light specimen, in which what is 

 really the upper division of the outer dark band was so lightly 

 coloured as to appear to belong to the central light band, giving 

 it the appearance of being divided into three parts transversely. 

 Out of hundreds of specimens which I have examined, there are 

 certainly not a dozen in which this is the case. Bergstrasser 

 depicts it under the name maturna in 1779, in his ' Nomen- 

 klatur,' vol. iii. p. 78, and makes objections to the original 

 description of maturna on the ground of the absence of red ! 

 (which is presumably what is meant by " purpurascens ") ; real 

 maturna he figures on pi. 75 under the name agroptera, and as a 

 form of cynthia on pi. 80 ; indeed, I find it very difficult to take 

 Bergstrasser seriously, in spite of the reverence with which some 

 modern entomologists appear to regard him. The names, by the 

 way, can only be found by reference to the text ; they are not 

 given on the plates. Hiibner's corythalia apparently also repre- 

 sents dictynna ; it is illustrated in vol. i. pi. 3, figs. 15 and 16, 

 and the under side is passably good. Hiibner's " dictynna,'" 

 pi. 14, fig. 10, is called by him '' Brenthis dictyjina,^' and repre- 

 sents ino. Esper, in giving his original description, speaks of 

 dictynna as having been up to that time included with other 

 species in cinxia. He expresses some doubt whether Geoffroy's 

 fourth variety, named aurinia by Kottemburg, may not have 

 represented this insect, but decides, undoubtedly rightly, against 

 it. The name dictynna had, as he says, been given by Schiffer- 

 miiller in his ' Verzeichniss,' p. 179 (1776), to some Melitfeid 

 form, but without any description, and he adopts it for the 

 insect that he figures and describes. There has never since been 

 any question (except apparently in the mind of Bergstrasser, 

 who in his other book seems to have regarded it as a variety of 

 athalia) as to its specific value. 



Deione is first mentioned by Hiibner at the foot of an 

 excellent illustration in 1805, figs. 947-950, but the unfinished 

 letterpress does not arrive at a description of it. The first 

 description, with another good illustration, is by Duponchel in 

 1832, in his ' Papillons de France.' This is what he says about 

 it : " Cette Melitee fait le passage de la Phcebe a I'Athalie. En 

 dessus elle offre le meme dessin que celle-ci, avec cette difference 

 que la bande du milieu et les lunules terminales des quatre 

 ailes sont d'un fauve plus clair que le fond. En dessous elle ue 

 differe de la premiere que parceque les lignes noires qui cernent 

 les taches et les bandes des ailes inferieures sont plus fines, en 

 meme temps que le fond de ces memos ailes est d'un jaune plus 

 pale et que les nervures en sont noires, tandis qu'elles sont 



