40 MR. H. J. ELWES ON THE GENUS PARNASSIUS. [JeD. 19, 



a botanist of St. Petersburg, in the Tarbagatai and Allakan Moun- 

 tains." ^ It has since been taken abundantly by Alpheraky in the 

 Thian Shan Mountains, above 9000 feet elevation, in July and 

 August. It frequents steep stony mountains up to 12,000 feet, 

 where there are great abundance of Saxifrages. Haberhauer also 

 took it in the Alatau, and in the Sultan Hazret mountains, south of 

 Samarkand, which form the western termination of the Alatau, in 

 great quantity between the 10th June and the beginning of August. 



This last was described by Herr Bang-Haas as P. staudingeri, but 

 after having seen large numbers of the two forms, three pairs of 

 each of which are in my collection, I fail to find any difference by 

 which they may be distinguished. Both are very variable, but both 

 have the antennae, fringes of the wing, pouch of the female, and all 

 important characters absolutely identical. 



Bang- Haas relies principally on the supposed broader fore wings, 

 and the purer yellowish white ground-colour with much sharper 

 blacker markings ; but when he wrote he had not yet received the 

 specimens of P. delj)hius, collected in Ferghana by Haberhauer, which 

 vary extremely. Some of these (? var. namaganci) have blue ocelli on 

 the hind wing, as in stoliczhanus. Some of the females of P. stau- 

 dingeri (var. in/ernalis, Stgr.) are very dark, almost black in their 

 ground colour. 



The antennae in this species are in the male sex black, but in all 

 my six females the lower part is more or less grey, not distinctly 

 ringed. The fringes are very narrow, whitish in colour, but some- 

 times darker ; and, as Bang-Haas points out, the horny substance of 

 the pouch forms a complete ring round the hinder segment of the 

 body. 



Dr. Staudinger says it varies from a uniform grey colour with 

 feebly marked blackish spots to a very dark colour with reddish- 

 yellow, red, or yellow ocelli on the hind wings, and in one specimen 

 two small red spots on the costal margin. The bluish scales of the 

 two black round ocelli on the hind wing also seem to be often want- 

 ing in the freshest specimens. 1 noted in his collection a very curious 

 looking organ protruding from the abdomen of a male specimen of 

 P. staudingeri, whioh, having some analogy in shape to the pouch of 

 the female, led Dr. Blaudiuger to think it was a hermaphrodite. This 

 organ, however, which, owing to his kind loan of the specimen, I 

 am able to figure (Plate II. fig. 14), is I believe only the ordinary 

 male claspers protruded from the body, perhaps owing to forcible 

 separation from the female. 



P. STOLTCZKANUS. 



Parnassius stoliczhanus, Feld Reise Novara, Lep. ii. p. 138 

 (1865), iii. t. 67. figs. 2, 3 (1867). 



With regard to P. stoliczhanus we know but little, as it is an 

 inhabitant of remote and inaccessible districts in Ladak and the 

 northern frontier of the North-west Himalaya. The late Dr. Stoliczka 



^ Perbaps this is a misprint for Alatau, as I can find no such name in the 

 best modern maps. 



