GEOGRAPHICAL VARIATION OF ZYGAENA LOTI. 29 
cate, owing to the difficulty of distinguishing even the species from 
each other and the blunders which have ensued. Even at the present 
time it needs quite a long practice to utilise the knowledge that has 
been acquired on the subject; for instance, I rarely receive a series of 
filipendulae and of Joti from localities where they fly together, in 
which the specimens have been properly separated, and in as recent a 
work as Die-schmett. Huropas. of Spuler, onefinds at pl. 77, fig. 18a, a 
transalpina figured under the name of stoechadis var. dubia! An un- 
mistakable character which distinguishes all the subspecies of /ili- 
pendulae from all those of transalpina, no matter how similar to each 
other they may be in certain regions, is the position of the hind row 
of red spots of the forewing as compared to the corresponding spots of 
the fore-row ; the former in transalpina are always situated more out- 
wardly; and a line drawn parallel to the direction of the body through 
these spots does not pass through the spot which stands in front of it, 
as it does in filipendulae and in its subspecies stoechadis. No author 
seems to have noticed this character, which is the only really constant 
and reliable one, to my knowledge, the thickly scaled and extensive | 
red patch of the underside of the forewings of loti, which distinguishes 
the two species in Central Europe, being so often reduced or absent in 
the Italian transalpina. 
I must take this occasion to note first of all that, if I am not 
wrong, the specific name of the Zyyaena in question has not yet been 
established correctly according to strict rules of priority! It has always 
been called transalpina, but in the second vol. of his Hur. Schmett., in 
which Esper creates this name, this author also publishes the figure of 
a Zygaena under the name of loti, which certainly is the little Central 
European subspecies of the same species, and he says in the text (page 
224) that the latter name was given to specimens from Vienna by 
“the Authors of the System. Verzeichniss der Wiener Schmetterlinge.” 
This can leave no doubt that the name existed in this well-known list, 
from which several specific names have been drawn in other instances, 
some time before Esper published his second vol. with the name trans- - 
alpina. Also Hiibner refers the name loti, not to Esper, but to “ d. 
Ther.,” that is to say to the Theresians, who are the authors of the 
Vienna List. I conclude that the specific name should be Joti, and 
that the nymotypical group of races of Central Europe should bear the 
same name, whereas the name transalpina should be restricted to the 
- South European subspecies or group of races. 
The name astrayali is purely a synonym, created fancifully by 
Borkhausen, and so is hippocrepidis, first used by Hubner in his text, 
and then taken up by Stephens and by Herrich-Schifter. 
I do not intend dealing here with the group of races of Central 
Europe, distinguished by their small size, frail build, and extent of red 
scaling, especially on the underside of the forewings; suffice it to 
mention that the following races have been distinguished: occidentalis, 
nymotypical, centralis (provincialis), and atpicoua, mihi. The name 
last mentioned I propose using instead of the name alpina, which 
Boisduval has given first to a filipendulae and then to a loti; the other 
races mentioned have been described by Oberthiir. The Alps and 
Pyrenees race alpicola, evidently belongs to the same subspecies, on 
account of the development of the red scaling on the underside of fore- 
wings, but by its stouter build and larger size it is clearly a transition 
to the subspecies transalpina. : 
