ANTHEOCERA (mESEMBRYNUS) PURPURALIS. 435 



border to the shoulder crests. Otherwise it resembles Z. minos. It is found in 

 Hungary and the neighbourhood of Vienna. 



Staudinger diagnoses this as " minor, macula media extremis non 

 dilatata, alas posteriores margine nigro (in apice) latiore." It is given 

 as a " south-east European " form by Staudinger, but it certainly 

 exists as an aberration in other parts of Europe. It is the form in 

 which the outer spot is wedge-shaped, and cut off rather sharply 

 towards its outer edge. Keferstein considers (Stett. Ent. Zeit., ii., p. 117) 

 A. pluto as a form of A. minos, and states that they occur together, 

 but notes that the former has a broader grey margin to the posterior 

 wings. Zeller, writing of one of Keferstein's specimens, and two others 

 received from Vienna, notes the former as having the hind-margin of 

 the anterior wings externally more convex than in A. minos. He 

 further remarks that in all, the middle spot of the fore-wings is much 

 farther from the hinder margin, and appears abbreviated ; the posterior 

 wings with a broader grey margin. The former of these characters 

 is striking, since the spot reaches little beyond the transverse nervure, 

 then suddenly expands on both sides, projects a tooth obliquely over 

 the third branch of the median nervure, and has its hinder margin not 

 hollowed. He, however, is doubtful as to the specimens being pluto, 

 Ochs. Ochsenheimer speaks of a less thickened antennal club, and 

 more rounded and broader wings. Boisduval states (Monog. des Zyg., 

 p. 32) that the intermediate spot in pluto is cuneiform, and that this is 

 the only character which distinguishes it from minos, in which it is 

 securiform. He afterwards figures (Tcones, pi. lii., fig. 4) an ordinary 

 A. purpuralis as A. pluto. Curo gives Liguria and Piedmont only for 

 this form in Italy. Mengelbir captured specimens in the Engadine as 

 high as the tree limit, near Bergell and Lake Como, which were 

 pale in colour, the outer spot cut off somewhat externally and smaller 

 than the type, and these are referred by him to var. pluto. Kirby treats 

 {Cat., p. 63) pluto, Ochs., as a distinct species. 



e. var. heringi, Zell., " Stett. Ent. Zeit.," v., p. 42 (1844). — The middle spot of 

 the anterior wings expands suddenly very considerably, fills up nearly the whole 

 breadth of the space between the first and second branches of the median nervure, is 

 rounded, and reaches even further towards the hind margin than in Z. minos. The 

 hind margin of the anterior wings is externally convex, with the convexity most 

 pronounced below the middle, whereby not only the apex of the wing is kept some- 

 what back, but also the breadth of the wing appears more considerable. The 

 antennae (especially noticeable in the male) more attenuated from the club towards 

 the base, and in the female are longer and have a more slender club. The males 

 have a little grey at the apex of the posterior wings, the females none at all. 

 Larvas orange-yellow, on Thymus serpyllum, at Stettin. 



Hering, as late as 1881 (Stett. Ent. Zeit., xlii., p. 133), insisted 

 on the distinctness of this insect from A. purpuralis. He says that 

 they never occur at the same time, generally in different places, 

 and have different larvaa, the larva of heringi feeding exclusively on 

 Thymus serpyllum, at Damm, Tantow, Vogelsang, etc., in July, the 

 imago appearing in August. 



f. ab. polygalae, Esp., "Die Schmett.," ii., p. 222, pi. xxxiv., contd. ix., fig. 3. 

 — Alis rubicundis concoloribus, limbo sinuato superiorum atro caerulescente. First 

 discovered in the summer of 1780, in the neighbourhood of Brauenheim, the speci- 

 men figured having come from Herr Gerning. Closely related to Sp>hinx pilosellae, 

 of which it has been suggested that it is a variety, but, plentiful as is the latter in Fran- 

 conia, no similar specimen has been found there. In S. pilosellae the scaling is very 

 thin, in S. polygalae it is very thick, and on both sides of the wings the latter is 

 unicolorous red. 



Esper's figure of polygalae differs from Hiibner's figure of rubi- 

 cundus, in that the colour is crimson, not coppery, and that there is 



