86 THE ENTOMOLOGIST'S KKCORD. 



16th, 1915). In Central Italy the line between the species naust 

 always be drawn amongst the individuals of this description, because 

 race vivace, Vrty., of lonicerae has particularly limited red spots and 

 would never produce six-spotted individuals. In Spain the distinction 

 may be expected to be more difficult, because it has to deal also with 

 the six-spotted forms. To separ at e loniceraeformis from lonicerae 

 is already anything but an easy task. Querci and I have searched 

 in vain for a constant character to go upon ; exceptions always occur. 

 On the other hand, there are several tolerably good ones, and when 

 two or three distinctly point in the same direction, one feels pretty 

 sure of one's conclusion. In loniceraeformis the dark scaling is of a 

 brighter indigo (less blackish) and more glossy ; the red scaling is 

 more warm and carmine, and when the specimen is held up against 

 the light, this colour, in very fresh ones, does not turn as pink as do 

 the more translucent spots of lonicerae ; the dark marginal band of the 

 hindwings has its internal limit more waved and less sharply defined 

 because it tends to shade off in sparse scaling, especially towards the 

 apex and between nervures C^ and A 2 . The best distinctive 

 characters are found, however, on the underside of the forewing : in 

 form loniceraeformis the sixth spot is, of course, absent also on this 

 surface, but very often a few red scales remain, which may escape 

 notice at first ; when they are detected on closer inspection they are 

 conclusive ; the presenee of red scales along the hind cubital nervure 

 of the cell may also be considered conclusive in specimens from 

 Central Italy, because, where vivax is found alone, it never exhibits 

 them, as do on the other hand, especially in the female, race silana,seeboldi 

 and most others ; finally the two basal spots are remarkably broader and 

 longer, so that the distance between them and the median spots 

 strikes one as much less than in vivax ; in this case too the difference 

 does not exist or is much reduced in other races of lonicerae, because in 

 vivax the red scaling of the forewing is much more reduced generally 

 than in any other race, evidently owing to its being the variation of 

 lonicerae, which corresponds to the very dark stoechadis races of 

 Central Italy. 



On the ground of the differential characters just mentioned, Querci 

 and I nearly always succeed, after a little mutual criticism, in 

 separating specimens to the full satisfaction of both, but a few, out of 

 hundreds examined every year, have actually baffled every attempt to 

 reach a conclusion. These belong to a form which hitherto would 

 have been placed amongst the lonicerae with the greatest confidence, 

 together with many others which we now are sure belong to stoecJuidis. 

 Far too great importance used to be given to the presence of six or 

 five spots as specific characters distinguishing /ilipendulae from the 

 lonicerae-trifolii ; only in the most obvious stoechadis was it conceded 

 that five spots could be found. This has been the cause of so many 

 hybrids and transitions having been thought to exist, when facts did 

 not fit the false starting point. No one seems to have realised that if 

 so many were met with by collectors, millions must have been 

 produced, and that if they were not all sterile, it was absurd to 

 maintain, as has been done, that ftlipendulae, stoechadis, lonicerae and 

 trifolii were four species. Burgeff states (I.e., 1914, p. 61) that he 

 obtained perfectly fertile offspring from a Bavarian male of filipendidae 

 and a female stoechadis from Genoa; why he calls them "hybrids," 



