ANCILLARY APPENDAGES OF THE ATHALIA GROUP. 261 
The male Ancillary Appendages of European species of the Athalia 
Group of the Genus Melitaea. (With three plates.) 
By W. G. SHELDON, F.E.S. 
Who that has studied European or Paleearctic Rhopalocera has not 
wrestled more or less unsuccessfully with this group of species, so 
‘ difficult, and in certain cases impossible, to determine with certainty 
from the wing markings. Even that most acute detector of minute 
specific differences, the late J. W. Tutt, confessed to the writer on one 
occasion his inability to make sure to what species certain specimens 
belonged, and he left the following record of his views at the time in 
Ent. Record, vol. xi., p. 228, ‘I do not know whether we have a lepi- 
dopterist in Britain, who is comfortably at home when considering M. 
athalia, M. dictynna, M. parthenie, and relatives. One might fairly 
divide the specimens obtained here (Pré St. Didier) into the larger, 
coarser J. athalia, and the smaller, neater looking M. parthenie, one 
suspects, however, that they have all hatched from the same batch of 
egos, and one observes also that the dark M. dictynna occurs wit some 
very ordinary looking M. athalia in the Val Ferrex.” 
Some years ago the lepidopterist of the National Hungarian 
Museum at Buda Pest, Dr. Antal Schmidt, asked me to name the 
museum series of the group, consisting of about two hundred examples. 
In this rather hopeless task I consulted the Rev. G. Wheeler, un- 
questionably the best authority on the Melitaeae in Britain. Mr. 
Wheeler, after carefully studying the series, admitted that there were 
specimens in it which he could not determine with certainty, because 
certain characteristics on which he relied in Swiss and French speci- 
mens did not exist in those from Hungary. 
During the expedition which Mr. A. H. Jones and I made to the 
Basin of the Volga, in 1914, certain Melitaeae were met with, and to 
determine these with certainty preparations of the genitalia of the 
whole of the species in the athalia-group had to be made. 
This task was undertaken by Mr. A. L. Rayward, and in view of 
the excellence of his preparations, and the fact that, so far as I am 
aware, photographs do not exist, in any British work, it seemed desir- 
able that they should be reproduced and their chief characteristics 
briefly described. 
It should be understood, however, that this paper deals only with 
the main outlines of the subject. It would require far more material 
than I could place at Mr. Rayward’s disposal to make quite sure as to 
the exact value of certain points. 
The appendages, for a group of which the wing markings of the 
various species so closely resemble each other, are extraordinarily 
diverse, and there is reason to believe that there is a good deal of 
minor variation between the local races of the species, and this may 
make any conclusions arrived at as to the specific value or otherwise 
of a local race or sub-species subject to revision, whenever preparations 
are made of the organs of a number of examples from each locality in 
which the species occurs. 
The appendages in addition to ‘being very diverse are highly 
developed, and this of course makes the sub-specific or local divergences 
more apparent than would be the case if they were simple. They are 
DecemBer 15rnH, 1916. 
