AGRIADES CORIDON AND A. ARAGONENSIS. 237 
Agriades coridon and A. aragonensis.* 
By T. A. CHAPMAN, M.D. 
It is a good many years since I made the acquaintance of a form of 
Agriades coridon on the Riviera, occurring in early spring, that 
obviously could not have passed the winter in the egg as coridon does 
with us. In 1910 I obtained eggs from this form of coridon, captured 
at St. Maxime early in May. These produced imagines at Reigate early 
in August. This fully satisfied me that we ‘had here a form of 4. 
coridow whose habits were quite different from those of our northern 
coridon, but almost identical with those of Agriades thetis (bellaryus). 
Without apparently any reference to this curious deviation from 
normal habit, Bartel’ in 1904, and Reverdin? in 1910, gave varietal 
names to slightly different forms of this Rivieran race, and Tutt? in 
1909 to the whole race, but in each case I think to examples of the 
spring brood. ‘Tutt goes fairly fully into these varieties and their 
names in British Butterflies, vol. xi., p. 45, et seq.. His account ap- 
pears to have been written before he had the advantage of seeing my 
series of bred specimens of the summer form. That an insect should 
be single-brooded in one locality and double-brooded in another further 
south is a circumstance with which we are familiar, but I cannot recall 
another instance in which it hibernates in different stages in the two 
localities. That the double-brooded form followed the habits of so close 
a relative as A. thetis made me think it might be here possible, but 
left me rather puzzled. 
In 1901 I took, in Central Spain (Tragacete, Albarracin), two forms 
of coridon, on closely adjoining and, at least once, identical localities. 
These two forms were, one (a7rayonensis) a very large and very pale 
form, almost as near to albicans as to our ordinary coridon, the other of 
ordinary size, but of a coloration much nearer to thetis than to our 
ideas of coridon, a very brilliant form. Could these two forms, occur- 
ring on the same ground at the same time, and not intermixing, be one 
species? Mr. Sheldon‘ has since taken intermediate forms, that may 
very well be hybrids, but they are in any case so rare that I came across 
none of them. Were the two forms one species, they ought to weld 
into one form with only occasional aberrations approaching the present 
extreme forms. I examined the appendages of these races, however, 
without finding anything to support the view that they were not all one 
species. I felt sure that there was still something to be made clear, 
but did not know where to look for the further necessary facts to that 
end. I fancy that this statement of my attitude towards the known 
facts, vz., one of complete indecision as to whether we had one species 
only, with several races or sub-species, or whether we had actually more 
than one, possibly several species, would not be altogether different 
from that of others who had paid any attention to the problem. 
1 Bartel, Hnt. Zeit., Guben, p. 117, rezniceki 
2 Reverdin, Bull. Soc. Lep. Geneva, vol. ii., p. 17, constanti. 
8 Tutt, Ent. Record, p. 290, meridionalis. 
4 He has since referred to these in Hnt., 1916, p. 194. 
° Sur deux Lycaena confondus sous le nom de L. (Agriades corydon, Poda. 
‘‘ Ann. Soc. Ent. France,’’ vol. Ixxxiv. (1915), pp. 514-520. 
November 15r7n, 1916. 
