90 THE entomologist's kecord. 



which exists in the wingspread of the insect itself ? I think that we 

 must acknowledge that the difference which exists is very much less 

 than we should have expected. 



These dwarf insects are doubtless starved more or less. Evidently 

 in the A. cnridon from the hilltop and bottom the food supply has been 

 very short. The insects have been able to develop, but are dwarfed. 

 Mr. Buckstone notes that the small males were not ever found paired, . 

 although the normal sized ones were often so found. The normal 

 males paired vsafch the dwarf females. Evidently in this case, although 

 the male organs appear to be complete, the insects lacked vigour or 

 power to copulate. 



It is evident that the genitalia do vary with the size of the speci- 

 men, but not at all in the degree which we should be inclined to 

 expect. I feel that I am not much more forward than I was before, 

 only T see that it behoves one to be carefui about distinguishing species 

 by measurement alone. 



My drawings may perhaps interest some who have never looked 

 into the subject of genitalia, when they observe that the organs of a 

 little butterfly like A. coridon are very much larger than those of a 

 big species like V. io and than those of A. ijrosstdariata. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND OBSERYATIONS. 



Ageiades THETIS RACE VECTAE, Vertty, — With reference to Dr. 

 Verity's account of this form may I give a few notes as to a series of 

 27 ^'s'and 9 $ s of A. thetis, which I took on the downs above Vent- 

 nor. Isle of Wight, in the first week of September, 1913. These 

 specimens do not altogether agree with Dr. Verity's description. The 

 race is on the whole small. The blue of the males does not appear to 

 me to differ from that of the few other British specimens un my 

 possession, though it is certainly of a brighter and more sky blue tint 

 than the blue of males from N.W. Asia Minor. Nine only, exactly 

 33 per cent., have premarginal black dots at all on the inferiors. The 

 females are dark and small, with little or no blue scaling on the bases 

 of the wings. Four are almost or quite destitute of orange lunules, 

 and all show traces of blue on the marginal side of the submarginal 

 black spots on the inferiors. On the under- side both sexes are dark, 

 but not I think darker than the average of English specimens, which 

 have a much darker underside than my specimens from Asia Minor. 

 In only one specimen are both the basal black dots of the anterior 

 wings absent. In 14 others, among them 5 females, the lower of the 

 two black basal dots is absent or more often obsolescent. The orange 

 lunules are more often bright than pale. The Ventnor race in its 

 second brood of 1913 certainly seems to me to approach the normal 

 British form of tJtetis much more nearly than to vectae as described by 

 Dr. Verity. One wonders whether there were any special climatic 

 features about the spring of 1875 which would perhaps explain the 

 abnormality of the series then taken by the late Conquest at Ventnor. 

 — P. P. Graves (Major), G.H.Q., British Force, Constantinople. 

 March 18«/t, 1919. 



