46 MR. H. J. ELWES ON THE GENUS PARNASSIUS. [Jan. 19, 



inclination to come together. I watched the cage till 3 p.m., when 

 the insects appeared as before, but the males much less active. On 

 the following morning I found one of them dead, and after waiting 

 for some hours to see if anything would happen, went out. When I 

 returned I found the female had escaped, some one having probably 

 opened the gauze from curiosity. Several eggs were lying loose at 

 the bottom of the cage, but these were lost in travelling. From 

 these experiments I can form no conclusion as to whether the copu- 

 lation had been incomplete, owing to the male having previously 

 mated with another female, or whether the duration of the act was 

 insufficient ; but the fact remains that eggs were laid by a female 

 without a pouch, and that three days after emergence from the pupa, 

 she remained healthy, though no pouch was formed. It seems to 

 me. that on account of the larger size of the pouch in this species it 

 would be a better one for anatomical observation than that ofP. apollo ; 

 and I hope that any entomologist who can assist me in making further 

 investigations by supplying me with larvae or pupae of this species 

 will do so. As to whether the pouch is ever shed by this or other 

 species of Parnassius, as asserted by some observers, 1 can only say 

 that I never saw one without it, except specimens which from their 

 extreme freshness I suppose to be unmated females, and of these 

 I have numerous specimens belonging to 8 or 10 species. 



One fact seems hard to explain, and that is the copulation of spe- 

 cimens which, from their appearance, were evidently not freshly 

 hatched, which I have noticed both in mnemosyne and in delius, but 

 which always separated when caught. Is it the case that, contrary 

 to the usual rule, the male only mates once and dies afterwards, 

 whilst the female, after having laid, is still attractive to males which 

 have not found a mate previously 1 If Mr. Watson's observations on 

 P. apollo are correct, and the pouch is formed by a secretion exuded 

 from the male and not the female, this seems likely ; connection 

 of the pouch with the abdomen in all species of the mnemosyne 

 group seems to be only at the hinder end, as at the forward end 

 it is often quite separate from the body, and the edges more or less 

 recurved. 



The variation of markings and size in this species is slight. Some 

 specimens show a tendency to transition into P. stubbendorfi by the 

 partial disappearance of the discal black blotches, and some females 

 are almost devoid of the milky white scales which cover the greater 

 part of the wings, but unless the var. nubilosus, of which I have 

 seen but few, is a constant variety, I know of none which are worthy 

 of especial notice, though Honrath describes a female melanic 

 aberration from Carinthia as melania. 



P. STUBBENDORFI. 



Parnassius stubbendorfi. Men. Desc. Ins. Lehm. p. 57, t vi fi? 2 

 (1848). ^' 



P. mnemosyne, var. immaculata, Men. Bull, de la classe "phys.- 

 math. de I'Acad. vol. v. n. 17. ^f j • 



