ON EMERGENCE OF THE GRYPOCERA AND RHOPALOCERA.. 65 
On Emergence of the Grypocera, and Rhopalocera in relation to 
§ Altitude and Latitude. 
Illustrated chiefly by the Sibillini Mts. (Central Italy) and by the Baths of 
Valdieri (Maritime Alps). 
By ROGER VERITY. 
Orazio Querci kindly undertook in 1918 to take notes regularly of 
the abundant material which the Signora Clorinda and the Signorina 
Brilda collected during all the good season in the Sibillini Mountains 
Piceno) at Bolognola and in the surrounding mountains. at a height 
of 1200 to 1800 m.1_ This has allowed me to form a sufficiently exact 
idea of emergence at the highest altitudes at which an abundant and 
varied lepidopterous fauna exists, and has allowed me to complete 
other observations made by me in some localities of Tuscany (Abetone, 
1300 m.2, Vallombrosa, 1000 m., Prato Fiorito, 1000 m.), and 
at the Baths of Valdieri, 1375 m., in the Maritime Alps. By this 
comparison I have obtained an agreement of data really notable, and 
I believe that the following rules derived from them may be applied to 
what occurs in all the great mountain ranges of Kurope. 
As regards the mountains of the Italian peninsula we have 
generally a tendency to an exaggerated idea of the modification 
produced by altitude in the emergence of the different species; this 
is chiefly owing to the exaggerated value given to the number of 
broods in the plain by mistaking the graduated emergence of some 
common species for a series of generations. (Vide my paper on “ The 
Various Modes of Emergence, etc.,” in Wnt. Rec., xxxi. p. 66). 
It is found instead that reproduction greatly resists the elfect of 
altitude and of the resulting shortness of the good season, partly 
by shortening the period of emergence of the different broods: 
‘‘ oraduated ” emergence is almost abolished and ‘“‘long’’ periods of 
emergence are often reduced to “ short’’ ones. The altitudes at which 
the Quercis have collected are the highest reached in our region by the , 
species which extend to the plains; the mountains round Bolognola 
are a good example and a proof of it; all the trigenerates, except 
rhamni, and all the bigenerates, except hylas, conrpletely disappear 
above 1300 m., at which height a zone begins inhabited only by strictly 
mountain species and by acteon and arivn amongst the other annuals. 
Up to 1800 m. no species seems to meet with conditions which prevent 
it from producing as many broods as it produces in the plains. 
The contrary is the case in the Alps, as we shall see, where nearly 
all the species emerge so late in summer that they would not have 
time to complete another cycle in the same season. In Central Italy 
the I. brood of the trigenerates emerges a month late compared with 
1A Catalogue and Description of the Lepidoptera collected in this region in 
1912 and 1913 has already been published by me in the Bull. Soc. Ent. Ital., xlvii. 
pp. 45-78 (Dec. 16th, 1915). \ 
2«« Hlenco di Lepidotteri Ropaloceri dell’ Alto Appennino Pistoiese.’’  l.c. 
xly. pp. 139-154 (1914). 
3 Blenco dei Lepidotteri della Vallombrosa (Appennino Toscano).  1.c. 
EXXviii. pp. 20-51 (1906). 
4urati and Verity. ‘‘ Faunula Valderiensis nell’ Alta Valle del Gesso.”’ 
lc. xlii. pp. 170-265 (1911) and xliii. pp. 168-235 (1912). 
Aprit 157TH, 1920. 
