NOTES ON THE FUMEIDS. 59 
the wane, and among the aromatic herbs Melitaea athalia, presently to be 
the commonest of all the fritillaries, is already sipping sweet honey. The 
sun at Digne during my visit generally shone in a blue sky until be- 
tween 2.0 and 3.00’clock in the afternoon ; after that it would be hazy 
until 6.0 or 7.0, when the sky cleared again. But I hardly ever found 
much on the wing after midday, and as I did my setting invariably 
before breakfast I took no opportunity to test the hour at which the 
first flight commences. But at Hyéres in the summer months, as I 
have elsewhere pointed out, you cannot go wrong any time between 5.0 
a.m. and 11.0 a.m., after which-—siesta for man, beast, and insect. It is 
now close on noon. Polyommatus bellargus, a large and brilliant form, 
is everywhere, the commonest blue. An occasional Pieris daplidice 
var. bellidice hovers upon the hillside, but with the exception of the 
thyme and the Doryeniwn, earlier loved of Nomiades melanops, there is 
not much in the way of flowering plants to attract the passing butter- 
fly. I found here, as everywhere else on the hills, that all insects pass 
up what I may perhaps best describe as ‘‘ gullies of light,” rarely leaving 
their chosen track, and that for capture, instead of scouring the scarps 
of burning rock, it is advisable to wait at the top of one of these 
shoots.” That dark butterfly almost tumbling up the slope is 
Erebia evias,a fine local species, but, like the rest of the spring things, 
Thats medesicaste included, well-nigh exhausted—which reminds me that 
I did see var. honoratii, but it had been bred by one of the local dealers 
out of pup innumerable, and he wanted thirty francs for his rarity, 
for which sum he did not find a purchaser that day, at any rate. 
(Lo be concluded.) 
Notes on the Fumeids, with descriptions of new species and 
varieties. 
By T. A. CHAPMAN, M.D., F.Z.5., F.E.S. 
Separating from our traditional Fumeas, Bacotia sepium as allied 
more nearly to the Micro-Psychids, and Proutia betulina and P. salicol- 
ella as haying fundamentally different antenne, we leave to the 
Fumeids a group of species that may be defined as Macro-Psychids, ¢.¢ 
Psychids with the anal hooks of the 3 pupa ventral and of the ° 
absent, the J imago without the subcostal accessory cell and with the 
antennal pectinations scaled, and the ¢ araneiform. 
The anterior tibial spur may be used broadly to distinguish the 
Micro-Psychids and Epichnopterygids from the true Psychids, the 
former haying it short and the latter long. At the position of our 
Fumeas, as one of the lowest groups of true Psychids, the anterior 
tibial spur is in a plastic condition, as it is also, to a less extent in the 
genus Bijuyis, as a lower branch of the Epichnopteryeids. The facts 
succest that as the Macro-Psychids developed from the Micro-Psychids, 
possibly in association with the acquisition of plumed antenne, a 
lencthening of the tibial spur, useful as an antennal comb, took place, 
or tended to do so. This we see in Bijugis and Iwnea. The effort 
was a failure on the Epichnopterygid side, and was given up. Hence 
Epichnopteryx has short spurs, Psychids have long ones. It would 
seem, however, that no spur was equal to the required functions (what- 
ever they are), and the spur is lost equally in higher Npichnopterygids 
and Psychids. In I’wnea we are provided, then, with the anterior 
