NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 367 



German dealers call typical examples are picked out. I have fifty- 

 three specimens from various parts of Europe and Asia, not enough 

 to illustrate the species ; but if you begin to name every form which 

 shows a little difference, you may just as well make ten as three 

 varieties. This will apply to many other species, and my experience 

 goes to prove that a number of the forms named in Staudinger's last 

 catalogue will eventually have to be struck out when we know more 

 about them. — H. J. Elwes; Colesborne. 



Vanessa antiopa. — Mr. Kirby's note on this species might lead 

 persons who have not access to a large collection to suppose that there 

 were races or constant local forms of this species distinguished by the 

 colour of the margin. An examination of the twenty-two specimens 

 (selected from much larger numbers) in my collection does not bear 

 out this idea. Of European specimens I have only six — two from 

 Stettin, two from Constantinople, two from the Alps — all of which 

 have pale straw-coloured borders. Next I have ten North American 

 specimens from such widely separated States as Washington, Colorado, 

 North Carolina, and New York, as well as from Lower Canada, Lake 

 Superior, and British Columbia. These are not on the average larger, 

 as Mr. Kirby says, but their border is (except in the Lake Superior 

 example) rather darker, and much more freckled with black specks. 

 Then I have five — a fair sample of perhaps fifty — taken by my native 

 collectors either in the Chumbi valley of Tibet, or the high valleys of 

 Bhutan which adjoin it. This is the only locality from which any 

 specimens have been procured by Indian collectors, and, as far as I 

 know, the insect does not occur in Kashmir, Ladak, or the N.W. 

 Himalaya. These specimens have borders, not white, as Mr. Kirby 

 says the Bhutan ones in the Museum have, but dull yellowish, much 

 freckled with black specks, and could not be distinguished from the 

 N. American ones. Lastly, I have a Japanese specimen, whose border 

 is intermediate in colour and freckling between the European and 

 American or Himalayan examples. Though the tendency to vary is 

 usually greatest in species which have a very wide distribution, yet 

 this seems not to be the case in antiopa : and I can hardly believe that 

 in England alone a variation which may occur anywhere has become 

 fixed, especially as many English specimens are old, worn, and faded, 

 and some of doubtful origin. Mr. Kirby's suggestion that the white- 

 bordered variety is more or less a mountain insect seems to me to rest 

 on very slight evidence. — H. J. Elwes; Colesborne, Nov. 1st. 



Vanessa c-album, var. hutohinsonii. — I see that a slight con- 

 troversy has arisen as to the varietal name of the brightly-coloured 

 summer variety of Vanessa c-album. Formerly the existence of this 

 form was here denied, but by the unremitting energy and care 

 of Mrs. Hutchinson it was some years ago well established. At the 

 same time Mrs. Hutchinson, with her invariable liberality, supplied 

 our collections with this beautiful insect, furnished larvse and pupae 

 for figuring, and exerted herself in all ways to make its history 

 thoroughly known. One suitable, though very small, acknowledg- 

 ment was made of this when the pretty summer form was named in 

 her honour. So comparatively short is the period since passed, that 



ENTOM. — DEC. 1896. 2 F 



