A BUTTERFLY HUNT IN SOME PARTS OF UNEXPLORED FRANCE. 91 



known to British collectors that I think it is worth while to re- 

 produce in brief Bellier's account of it. 



" Male, rusty brown; all four wings traversed as to two-thirds 

 of their breadth by a ferruginous band which mingles somewhat with 

 the ground colour, especially on the hind wings. 



" Up. s. f. ws. — Band with two black white-pupilled eyes (some- 

 times absent) ; h. ws. without ocellation. 



" Un. s. f. ws. lighter and more reddish brown, reproducing the 

 pattern of the upper side. H. ws. reddish grey, with a broad median 

 band of dark brown slightly lunulate ; a marginal band of the same 

 colour. Fringes unicolorous on both sides. 



" Female larger than male, from which it hardly differs on the 

 upper side, except that the brown is more yellowish and the ferru- 

 ginous band clearer. Un. s. h. ws. much clearer grey, with two 

 bands of reddish brown, on which the nervures show somewhat 

 whitish. Fringes of all the wings plain and unicolorous on both 

 sides. 



" Differs from gorge by the wings being more rounded, and the 

 fringes simple, not barred. Ground colour of the under side duller 

 in tint ; band thicker, less festooned, and showing less distinctly from 

 the ground colour." 



In male specimens sent by Dr. Verity, of Florence, to the 

 Natural History Museum from the Italian Maritime Alps, the 

 blackish-brown androconia are very strongly marked. Bellier 

 also notes that it prefers the green pastures like epiphron to the 

 ^for^e-haunted rocks ; and this is my experience, also, of the 

 species. 



I may add that the plate in the * Annales ' by no means does 

 justice to the rich coloration of the var. gorgophone, except that 

 of the figure of the under side of the male ; and it is to be 

 hoped that in some future number of his beautiful ' L6pido- 

 pterologie Comparee,' M. Charles Oberthiir will find a place for 

 male and female figures of this very striking form of mnestra — 

 if such it be. Curiously enough, Mr. H. J. Elwes, in his ' Ke- 

 vision of the Genus Erehia ' (Trans. Ent. Soc. London, 1898, 

 pp. 169-207), makes no mention of it either under mnestra or 

 gorge. Of the mnestra group, in his previous ' Notes on the Genus 

 Erehia ' {loc. cit. 1889, p. 333), he merely remarks that " little need 

 be said, as they are species little subject to variation and of limited 

 distribution." Of the Pyrenean E. gorgone, with which Bellier 

 associated it. Dr. Chapman says {loc. cit. 1898, p. 222), " if it is 

 a variety of anything, it is a variety of mnestra." But he, too, 

 in his exhaustive examination of the male appendages of the 

 genus, does not appear to have had any material to work out 

 the affinities of the Basses-Alpes gorgophone. 



(To be continued.) 



H 2 



