122 the entomologist's record. 



through and naming for me all the difficult Syrichthi, as we used to 

 call them — from the various places at which we stayed. I took several 

 nice specimens of Thymdicus acteon. Adupaea flava (thauuias) had seen 

 its best days, but Auyiad.es syluanits was still in good condition, whilst 

 Nisoniades (Thanaos) tayes was going over. Of the genus Hesperia my 

 friend Rowland-Brown tells me I have taken H . fritillum (cirsii) 

 only. In the few days we stayed here I did not look after Heterocera 

 at all, but I took a typical Coseinia striata and one " Jersey 

 tiger " moth. 



An Essay on the Systematic Study of Variation in the Races of 

 Zygaena filipendulae, L, and of its subspecies stoechadis, Brkh. 



By ROGER VERITY, M.D. 



(Continued from p. 114.) 



Group of races which produce commonly both the 

 five- and the six-spotted form, in which the red 

 suffusiou on underside of fore-wings is usually absent or 

 reduced, when it exists, to a narrow streak on cubital 

 nervure and which have, to a greater or lesser degree, a • 

 broad marginal band on hindwing (mostly latiorelimbata, 

 more rarely latissiireliinhata) and the beginning of other 

 primary pattern markings: — 



Race pyrenes. m\h\ = dubia, Obth. (Et. Lep. Comp., IV., pp. 538- 

 542 (1910). and III., pi. xxviii.. fig. 169-171 (1909). This race would 

 belong to the nrkscnheimeri group, because the hindwings only have a 

 marginal dark band and are never broadly darkened, but it differs from 

 the Italian -ones by the frequency of five-spotted individuals and of 

 those with no trace at all of red suffusion on the underside of forewing; 

 these two forms are quite exceptional in the races described above. I 

 note however that out of two males and four females collected by the 

 Quercis on July 27th, 1919, at S. Pietro Avellana in the Molise 

 (Neapolitan district), the two former and one of the latter are five- 

 spotted, have no red suffusion on underside of forewings and the band 

 of hindwings corresponds to those figured by Oberthiir from Verne t- 

 les-Bains, so that there probably exist amongst the Italian races 

 transitional to etrusca, some very similar to this author's from the 

 Pyrenees-Orientales. His figure 169, with five spots and a marginal 

 band on hindwing so broad as to reach about mid-way between the 

 margin and the end of the cell c;m be taken as nymotypical of pyrenes, 

 although he says fig. 171, with that band not broader than in 

 ochsenheiwevi, represents the commonest form.; I suggest this because 

 the former would never be found amongst the pure ochsenheimeri race 

 and it thus characterises the Vernet race well, whereas the latter is 

 quite similar to the scarce five spotted individuals which occur in Italy 

 even where ochttmheimeri is best characterised. I have proposed the 

 new name of pyrenes for the Pyrenees-Oiientales race, because, if I am 

 not wrong, that of dubia, used by Oberthiir for it, cannot stand. The 

 name dubia was created by Staudinger in bis Cat. Lep. Fhir., of 1861 ; 

 no description accompanied it; it was simply placed, with a mark of 

 interrogation before it, at the bend of a paragraph consisting in 

 quotations of a most heterogeneous lot of figures of various 

 authors, which Staudinger evidently was at a loss about referring. 

 The first figure quoted is medicayinis, Boisduval, Mon. des 



