THE BRITISH RACES OF BUTTERFLIES. Lo 
Linnean times, for names alone can fix characters and forms so that 
they can be recorded and referred to by other observers. 
No knowledge of which race was described by Linnzus being 
available, it had tacitly been implied that the one of northern and 
central Europe was nymotypical of M. galathea, taking it as a whole 
and only separating from it the darker procida, Hbst., from some parts 
of southern Europe, and the still darker turcica, Boisd., from the 
Balkans. To be more accurate it is necessary to notice first of all that 
amongst the insects which were called nymotypical at least two large 
groups of local races are clearly discernible ; no author having as yet 
pointed this out, their respective distribution remains to be established, 
but they appear certainly very distinct from one another, not only 
when extensive series are compared, but even by a simple comparison 
of a few specimens of the average type of each. 
One consists in the extreme variation of the species, in which the 
black pattern is reduced to the greatest extent, the other may be 
roughly described as intermediate between this and procida. 
The only specimen left to us by Linnaeus, a female, certainly does 
not belong to the first race mentioned; a doubt may arise as to 
whether it belongs to the second or to procida. This doubt has arisen 
in my mind since I found out the existence of the two forms mentioned 
above. When I considered them as one and procida as a second form, 
I did not hesitate to ascribe the Linnean type to the latter, and I 
suggested in the Bulletino of the Italian Entomological Society to sink 
this name in synonymy, but I think a new examination of the type is 
necessary before taking a definite decision on the subject. If it should 
be left standing, the nymotypical race can only be the one which 
immediately precedes it in degree of development of the black 
markings. It must be noticed that Linnaeus in his original description 
actually states that there are no ocelli on the upperside, which exactly 
agrees with his specimen, and excludes the whiter form in which the 
ocelli are not merged in a black band but stand out well; besides this, 
Linnaeus gives Germany and the most southern portions of Kurope as 
habitat, which also excludes the greater part of the area of distribution 
of the form just mentioned. 
I have races of the nymotypical form in my collection from the 
whole of Tuscany, from the Sibillini mountains in the Piceno 
(Southern Italy), from Vitriolo in Tyrol, ete. In Piedmont procida 
seems to substitute it entirely both in the plains (neighbourhood of 
Turin) and in the higher Alpine localities (Valdieri, 1,400 m.), and, 
strangely enough, so it does in Sicily (Madonie mountains), where a 
procida is to be met with which, in the male sex, is exactly similar to 
the Piedmontese one. In the higher ranges of Calabria (Aspromonte, 
1,200 m.) the most melanic race of galathea may be said to exist, being 
even more so than the better known turcica; 1 described it a year ago 
under the name of calabra. 
Diametrically opposite to this stands the very white race I first 
mentioned above and which I have named serena. Its culminating 
form is probably the British galathea, so that I have chosen a British 
couple as types from a series collected at Abbots Repton (Derby). I 
have specimens which do not seem to differ much from it, also from 
several French localities (Pont de l’Arche, Autun, etc.), and from 
Germany (Cassel), so that I believe it to be the commonest form of 
