112 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



Eace calabra, Vrfcy. {Bull. Soc. Ekt. France, 1917, p. 223). At a 

 very high altitude (Piano di Carmelia, m. 1200, on the Aspromonte) in 

 Calabria Querci has discovered a most interesting race. The male is 

 a grade further on, as compared with that of siciliensis, along the 

 stoechadis line of variation and it can, in fact, be described as identical 

 with ochsenheimeri, but the female is instead a grade further back than 

 siciliensis and constantly belongs to pulcherrimaeformis. The result is a 

 much greater sexual dimorphism than exists, on the whole, in any 

 other stoechadis race. Following the usual rule in Calabrian races, 

 calabra is of large size and not smaller than ochsenheimeri of the plains, 

 like the mountain races of Central Italy. 



Eace calabra-ochsenheimeri, mihi. On the Coast Eange, at S. 

 Fili, at about m. 900, another Calabrian race was found in June, 1920, 

 which is quite intermediate between calabra and ochsenheimeri. A large 

 percentage of the females belong distinctly either to one or to the other, 

 the rest are transitional ; this compound name designates perfectly the 

 marked dimorphism of this sex, which characterises the race ; the 

 male is, of course, an ochsenheimeri, like that of calabra. 



Eace major, Esper [Schrnett., Snppl. Sphing., p. 19, pi. xli., fig. 4 

 (1793, not 1789, as stated by Tutt, because on the same plate is 

 figured exulans, which Esper at p. 17 says was found in 1792)] . It is 

 quite surprising how all authors quote this name as a synonym of 

 ochsenheimeri, Z., when it is fifty years older than the latter. Esper's 

 figure is rough, but unmistakable, and his description, comparing his 

 insect " from the south of France " with the German filipenchilae, and 

 and including size, brilliant colouring, broader and more sinuous 

 marginal band on hinclwing, shows once more what a wonderful eye 

 that entomologist had for his times. Oberthur in his Et. hep. Com}}., 

 iv., p. 547, includes in ochsenheimeri, Z., both the Sicilian and the race 

 from Montpellier, besides the one from Central Italy. The first I 

 have shown to be distinct ; if the two latter are quite similar to each 

 other it seems to me inevitable that the name major should replace the 

 one of ochsenheimeri. A closer comparison of adequate series will 

 however, I believe, reveal some difference, which will make it worth 

 while utilising the former for the race from the south of France, and 

 the latter for that of Italy. 



Eace ochsenheimeri, Zeller (Isis, 1847, pp. 303-7). Tutt and 

 Oberthur both note that this name was given by Zeller to 

 Ochsenheimer's description of what he called transalpina, a name 

 which of course could not stand, having been used by Esper for a 

 totally different insect. Oberthur very rightly applied the name to 

 those races of stoechadis which are always or nearly always six-spotted 

 and which have, comparatively to the other stoechadis, a very narrow 

 marginal band on hindwing. This made things much clearer than 

 they had been left by Staudinger, followed blindly by Seitz, Dziurzyhski 

 and others, who kept up an inexplicable distinction between " stoechadis 

 var. diibia, Stdgr.," and "ftlipendidae var. ochsenheimeri, Z.," but fur- 

 nished no clue, either in their descriptions oi in their habitats, as to 

 what they meant by them. Evidently they had never made 

 out the distribution of filipendulae and of stoechadis, and they 

 had in mind some wrong idea about them. In the next paragraph 

 I will deal with the name of dubid, Stdgr., which authors of 

 the last century found so convenient to cover their difficulties 



