SEASONAL POLYMORPHISM. 193 



Seasonal Polymorphism and Races of some European Grypocera 

 and Rhopalocera. 



By BOGER VERITY, M.D. 

 (Co7itiniied Jrom page 1S4.) 

 Melitaea atJialia, Eott., race tenuis, mihi ; race tenuicula, mihi ; 

 race obscura, mihi. In the Italian Alps are found helvetica, 

 Riihl (type preserved in Florence in the Riihl coll. of the R. 

 Stazione d'Entomologia Agraria), dehiiinia, Frhst., and celadussa, 

 Frhst. In Piedmont, and more exactly near Turin, the wonderful 

 little race is found, which I have called anreliaefonnis [Bull. Soc. Ent. 

 Italiana, xlviii., p. 186 (December, 1916)] , because a great many 

 individuals have quite a characteristic look, reminding one markedly 

 of that of anrelia ; some males only measure 25 mm. in expanse and 

 females 28 ; the black pattern is of a very deep tinge on both surfaces, 

 broad and shaded in outline ; the fulvous is dull, often very red in 

 tone and so are the rust-coloured spots of the underside, which some- 

 times are faint and have a yellow centre. Specimens of this peculiar 

 little form are mixed with others quite similar to Tuscan ones and with 

 trinsitions; the palpi are always blackish and never more reddish than 

 in many unquestionable athalia. 



Further south one meets with giant maxima, Turati, in certain 

 localities of the coast (Isle of Elba ; Calabria) ; it comes nearest to 

 mehadiensis, Gerh., of Hungary, and has an extensive black pattern. 

 In other localities of the coast and inland a race is generally 

 distributed in the whole of peninsular Italy and Sicily, which is quite 

 different from the Central European one,* and which I propose calling 

 tenuis ; it is also found in Spain and probably more diffused there than 

 magna, Seitz, iberica, Stdgr., and dejnneformis, Vrty. (the last name I 

 have substituted in Bull. Soc. Ent. Ital., xlv., p. 208, to that of 

 nevadensis, Obth., preoccupied by a race of farthenie). I take as 

 typical of tenuis a series from Plan di Mugnone, near Florence. At 

 high altitudes it becomes smaller : race tenuicula, mihi ; typical series 

 fromBolognola in the Sibillini Mountains, 1200 m. The male of 

 tenuis generally measures about 31 mm. ; but varies from 27 to 34mm. ; 

 the female varies from 33 to 36mm., and one of my specimens, 

 agreeing with aureliaeformis, measures 26mm. Individual variation is 

 very great and extreme forms reach the nymotypical one, dejoneformis, 

 and the pattern of such specimens as those figured by Seitz in 

 Grossschmett., under the names^ of viehadiensis, magna, and iberica, 

 although they never reach those sizes. On the whole the fulvous is 

 much brighter and warmer than in Central European races ; the black 

 pattern is much thinner and the comparative extent of its various parts 

 confers to it more the look of that of dejone or jiarthenie than of nymo- 

 typical athalia, in which it gives more the impression of an even 

 network ; the median S-shaped band particularly is much more 

 variable ; it is often absent on the hindwings ; also on underside the 

 pattern is thinner and the rust-coloured spots more extensive and 

 brighter. In a general way this race may be said to culminate in 

 dejoneformis, which is more particularly a high mountain form, but 



* I consider this the nymotypical race, because Rottemburg named athalia 

 the insect described by Geoff roi in Hist. d. Lis., as var. B. of cinxia, from Parisian, 

 specimens. 



NOVEMBER, 1919. 



