SEASONAL POLYMORPHISM. 171 



this Journal nearly a fall list of the races and seasonal forms of the 

 species collected by him. Only a few remained to be worked out and 

 amongst them not more tban half-a-dozen have turned out to be new 

 races, still undescribed. This result is worth noticing : the Querci 

 family, consisting in four energetic and clever entomologists, have 

 collected all through the good season in several very promising and 

 diverse localities, looking out eagerly for novelties. I have spent two 

 months in South Tyrol or Alto Adige (its Italian name), collecting 

 quite a considerable material, both in the field, from the glaciers 

 of the Ortler to the hot valleys of the Adige and the Isarco, 

 and by purchasing the specimens left by the late Herr Arno Wagner, 

 of Waidbruck, a most distinguished field-naturalist, who had devoted 

 many years to the study of the Lepidoptera of that region. I have 

 put together all the writings I could find on it, with a view to the 

 publication of a Catalogue of its races in the Atti delict. Societa ltaliana 

 di Scienze Naturali and also here, the result is that all the materials I 

 have at hand seem to be well covered by existing descriptions. We 

 evidently can conclude that, on the whole, the races and seasonal 

 variations of the Zyyaenides, Grypocera and Rh^palocera of Italy, 

 from the Alps to Calabria are very tolerably known, extending 

 considerably the remark I made last year in connection with Central 

 Italy, in my Catalogue of the races of the Mainarde Mountains, in 

 Southern Latium [Boll. Labor. Zool. R. Scnola Ayr. Portici, xiv., pp. 

 33-62 (June, 1920)] , which, already Querci and I had been surprised 

 at having found, nearly invariably, quite identical with those of 

 Northern Tuscany. 



I wish to lay stress on this remarkable fact, because, but a few 

 years ago, the few lepidopterists who, like myself, undertook to 

 describe and name geographical races, obviously distinct from each 

 other, were made the object of severe criticism, the chief argument 

 against them being that variation is endless and that we would finish 

 by giving a name to the series of every locality. I should scarcely 

 have hoped to be able to confute this assertion as early as this, and in 

 one way, I confess I am sorry the first part of this interesting quest 

 for novelties has already come so close to its end in this country. It 

 should encourage entomologists of other countries to acquaint us as 

 soon as possible with theirs. In Italy the work that chiefly remains to 

 be done, besides the few additions, which may turn up unexpectedly 

 here and there, is to establish the distribution of the various races and 

 the way they blend into each other. An interesting remark one can 

 make, for instance, is that the races of Calabria, situated at the far 

 end of the long Italian peninsula, revert abruptly in some species (10 

 out of 50 collected), to the aspect these have in the southern part of 

 Central Europe and in the Alps in particular, differing most strikingly, 

 by their larger size and richer, more saturated colouring and markings, 

 from their nearest neighbours of Peninsular Italy in general, 

 characterised, as a rule, by their small size, frail build, markings 

 reduced in extent and colour vivid, but light. The only case in which 

 exactly the opposite occurs, is Pamassius apollo, L. Most species 

 have the same aspect in the whole of Peninsular Italy, from Tuscany 

 to Calabria. Only one (Euchlo'e cardamiiies, L.) exhibits the features 

 of the Sicilian race in Calabria, a rather remarkable fact ; it is 

 most distinctly turritis, Och., and not meridionalis, Vrty., as Querci 



