AGRIADES CORIDON VAR. ROYSTONENSIS. 7 
of P. napt, was accomplished without disaster, and only five that were 
overcrowded perished on the way. They were fed at intervals with 
sugar and water, to the great amusement of my fellow passengers, and 
were permitted to come through without any objection on the part of 
the custom officials. 
Agriades coridon var. roystonensis. A reply to Mr. H. B. Williams. 
By C. P. PICKETT, F.E.S. 
It does one good sometimes to be pulled up by a younger member. 
Tf Mr. Williams will allow an elder brother entomologist of over 80 
years keen collecting of the ‘“‘ blues” and especially of A. coridon, to make 
some further remarks, I hope I can enlighten him on the new form 
roystonensis. Iam indeed pleased to see that Mr. Williams is as keen 
as lam on varietal names. I weighed the matter up thoroughly before 
I put my new name into print. Since the late J. W. Tutt’s varietal 
name inaequalis we have advanced a step further andare still advancing, 
nature’s mysteries are not solved in a single season and it requires any 
amount of patience. One was in the hope that during August 1915 
ons would get a little nearer to the nature of this quaint new form of 
A. coridon. But, alas! the war stopped many an enthusiast from 
following up histheories. Still we have got so far as to know that this 
new form is quite different from Tutt’s ab. inaequalis. 
Several times I had the pleasure of going to the late Mr. Tutt’s 
house to help him with his work in the “blue” family. On one 
occasion I took my long series of A. coridon (then four cabinet drawers) 
containing all his known varieties and aberrations and also several un- 
named forms, over which we spent a lengthy evening, leaving them 
with him to go through again at his leisure. The latest volume of 
British Butterflies contains references to several of my forms, but this 
new form, roystonensis was quite unknown to him. I had his views first 
hand regarding ab. inaequalis, and saw his specimens and many others 
that were lent him whilst he was working at his book, but they were 
all very different from this new form. 
Such a great number of roystonensis has now been taken over a period 
of several years from this Herts locality, that a new name is certainly 
justified to callit by. Lt seems pretty clear that Royston is its strong- 
hold and that outside this locality it is extremely rare. Occasionally 
one comes across butterflies with one wing smaller than the others, 
but not such an aberration as we have in this new form. It is too 
striking, as all entomologists who have interested themselves in the 
“blues ’’ have readily noted. 
Mr. Cockayne’s microscopical examination of these curious forms 
has revealed that the blue scaling on roystonensis contains male andro- 
conia, and we look forward to still further elucidations of this mys- 
terious “blue.” With regard to his name inaequalis, Mr. Tutt used 
the words ‘asymmetrical with blue scales” as applying only to the 
unequal amount of blue markings on the opposite wings, and certainly 
not to the shape of the wings. Now in roystonensis the shapes of the 
wings are in marked contrast to any of the forms of Mr. Tutt’s ab. 
inaequalis. This new form is not the form named by Mr. Tutt as ab. 
inaequalis. Tis inaequalis, as seen by me at his house, are described 
