158 THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD 
palpi; antennae entirely wanting ; ocelli small, situated near base of mandibles at 
apex of parietale. Thorax: prothora« chitinous, the prothoracic spiracles situated 
just above intermediate pair of legs; meso-, and metathorax soft, similar in 
construction to segments of abdomen. Abdomen fleshy, deeply creased, rounded 
on dorsal surface, flat on ventral surface, considerably bent in middle, with nine 
visible segments present, tapering towards apex; eight pairs of spiracles present, 
which are circular, large, and deep; anus round, surrounded by three round 
prominences ; all the segments of the abdomen are covered with very fine widely 
scattered hairs (which are not shown in the figure). Legs three-jointed (similar in 
shape to maxillary and labial palpi), basal joint large, broad, furnished with a 
number of long bristle-like hairs, apical and intermediate joints narrow with a 
ring of bristles at apex. 
Long.—about 12 mm. if stretched out. 
On Zygena rhadamanthus, Esper, with special reference to the 
races of its subspecies oxytropis, Boisd. 
By ROGER VERITY, M.D. 
Oberthiir, in his Et. de Lépid. Comparée, vol. iv., p. 586 (1910), 
maintains that rhadamanthus of the South of France and Spain, and 
oaytroptis of Italy belong to the same species. I quite agree with him; 
when two insects resemble each other as much as these do and inhabit 
two different regions, and when furthermore these regions are in close 
proximity and the insects do not keep distinct, but overlap and blend 
on the boundary, I think there can be no doubt that they are both repre- 
sentatives of the same species. I do not see why the red collar of the 
rhadamanthus larva, absent in that of owytropis, should necessarily be 
anything more than a variation, similar to those one observes in the 
imago. Oberthtir observes that the +rhadamanthus race of the 
Maritime Alps differs less from owytropis than it does from other races 
of the former; the existence of this transition seems quite conclusive. 
T would only add that the French and the Italian races might very 
naturally be grouped into two subspecies, such as there are in 
most species of Zyyaena when their specific limits are established on a 
wider scale than has hitherto been done. On companjng yraslini, Led., 
of W. Asia with the Zygaenae in question, I find such a perfect 
identity of structure and wing-markings that I feel quite confident this 
is but a third subspecies, which completes most admirably the series of 
variations of the species, from yraslini with dark scaling extremely 
reduced in extent, especially in its form confluens, Obth., to oxytropis 
race laterubra, and race oaytropis, and then on to rhadamanthus race 
ovytropiferens, and race rhadamanthus, culminating in the melanic 
form kiesenwettert, H.S. All the wide-spread and variable species of 
Zygaenae show this scale of variation when their real, broad limits are 
established ; see, for instance, the variations of 7. loti from the form 
niltosa, Cand., of its race occidentalis, Obth., to the extreme melanism 
of calabrica, Calb., in its subspecies transalpina, Esp. Another remark 
I must make is that no author seems to have noticed the close resem- 
blance of 7%. anthyllidis, Boisd., of the Pyrenees with rhadamanthus. 
I am in no way prepared to include it as another subspecies of the 
latter, but I certainly think it should be classified next to it and that 
it connects it admirably to what one might call the lowest group of 
species of the genus (evulans, purpuralis, etc.), whereas otherwise 
rhadamanthus would stand alone with davandulae or would only vaguely 
be connected to distant Asiatic species, such as cambysea, Led., through 
