BUTTERFLIES OF MESOPOTAMIA. 353 
Genus ZEGRIS, Ramb. 
Z. eupheme, Esper. Seitz Vol. 1. 23 a. 
Apex of forewing grey with orange centre. Underside of hindwing white 
with an irregular branching green patch partly tinted with yellow or sienna. 
This ‘‘ orange tip”’ occurs in 8. Spain and 8. Russia, also through Asia Minor 
to Armenia, Caucasus, Syria and Persia. Its races intergrade, and the differences 
between them are slight. The typical form is from 8. Russia and has normally 
a good deal of yellow on the ground-colour of the hindwing beneath, this contain- 
ing only about 6 small round spots of white. 
The butterfly has a remarkable discontinuity in its European distribution, 
there being no occurrence of the species between Spain and S. Russia. Its 
transformations are described by Hofmann and others. 
Subsp. meridionalis Lederer, Seitz. Vol. 1 23b, from Spain has underside 
hindwing ground colour often quite yellow so that there are no white spots: 
specimens hardly distinguishable from type also occur. 
Subsp. menestho, Menetries, from Asia Minor and W. Kurdistan is described 
as having f.w. with apex less black, powdered with light scales, underside of 
hindwing a clearer yellow with less green. 
But the nearest named form to that here mentioned from the Dyala is tschu- 
dica, Herrich-Schaffer, Seitz. Vol. 1. 23 a, described as an aberration of the 
typical form from 8. Russia, but occurring also in Syria and Caucasus, and having 
no yellow on hindwing beneath, but only green on white. Many examples, 
however, from Mesopotamia are “‘drier”’ still than this, having more white 
in proportion to green, also the green is more tinted with yellow or sienna es- 
pecially in the later emerged examples. The National collection, it may be noted, 
has very few of these eastern or “dry” forms of ewpheme. 
The egg, taken from the abdomen of a Z. ewpheme tigris, seen under the micro- 
scope, is a broad stumpy sugar-loaf cone with slightly rounded base. One seen 
‘end on’ showed fifteen longitudinal ridges, and also fine transverse ridges between 
them, each distant from the next by about a third of its length. Breadth to 
length of egg is as 3 to 4, it being much broader comparatively than the egg 
of either H. belemia or E. ausonia. 
Larva.—The larva is shaped like that of Huchle, but is hairy and, it is said, 
spins itself a cocoon of stout silk attached at both extremities by threads, in 
this cocoon-making habit resembling the Papilionid genera Thais and Parnassius. 
Seitz says : “*‘ Larva thick, cylindrical, densely hairy. Pupa stout, with a dense 
cocoon, in which one finds still a remnant of the thread characteristic for pupz 
of Pierids”. The genus is based chiefly on the larva. Two other species 
occur, Z. fausti, Chr., from C. Asia, with a brick-red “‘ tip’’; and Z. olympia 
Edw., from Texas. 
Kane says: Food plant. Sinapis incana and a species of Raphanus, etc. 
Subsp. dyala. Peile. See Plate. Fig. 1:2. @ Q. 
Description :— Upperside.—Forewing. Ground-colour white. Costa sinuous in 
outline. Discoidal spot black, convex on basal side, concave exteriorly. Apex 
inner third black turning outwards at an angle to join costa, middle third an 
elongated bright orange patch which varies slightly in size and forms an angle 
with a white subcostal bar, outer third grey. The orange patch usually less, 
and grey apex darker than in menestho and not tinged with yellow. Hindwing 
white, with markings of underside showing through slightly. Underside f.w. 
ground colour white. Discoidal spot dense black as above. Apex with a 
few touches of yellowish green. Hindwing, an irregular green patch, the shape 
of which, on the right side, may roughly be compared with that of the map of 
England and Scotland, with two broken up prolongations of the colour of 
raw sienna and green towards the costa. These prolongations vary much in 
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