ANTHROCERA (mESEMBRYNUs) PURPURALIS. 437 



would like to know though what differences exist between the genitalia of 

 fubicundus, Standfuss, and erythrus, Hb. 



6. ab. (et var.) nubigena, Led., " Verh. zool.-bot. Ver. Wien," ii., p. 93 (1852). — 

 Very thinly scaled (like A. exulans), the red of a pale crimson, the border of the hind- 

 wings rather convex. 



Lederer calls this Alpine form nubigena, Mann (MS. name), and 

 describes it from a single male specimen from the Pasterze glacier. 

 This must not be confused with the Irish form, nubigena, Birchall, 

 which is very near, if not identical, with the type. We have taken the 

 mountain form on the high Alps in many localities — Mont de la 

 Saxe, 7,000 ft. ; above Cogne, 6,500 ft. ; Petit St. Bernard, 5,500 ft. ; 

 Le Lautaret, 8,000 ft., etc., — and find the specimens large, rather 

 thinly scaled, and distinctly pale in colour. They differ much from the 

 Irish specimens, which, in good condition, appear to be identical with 

 the continental type, except perhaps that they are rather less in 

 average size. Curo records nubigena, Led., from the Italian Alps, 

 Jordis as occurring on the Simplon. Frey says that, " all who have 

 observed this species on the Alps well know that there is no sharp line 

 of demarcation between the type and var. nubigena, i.e., such speci- 

 mens as Mann obtained at Gross Glockner. I have such specimens, 

 captured in 1865, in the Upper Engadine, a thousand feet above 

 Sils-Maria, where nubigena occurs as a large, thickly-scaled and dark- 

 coloured insect." Staudinger records it as being found on the 

 pastures up to 7,000 ft. at Heiligenblut, in Carinthia ; whilst Erschoff 

 records this form from the defile of Chakhisnarden, in the Pamirs, and 

 Fedchenko, from the Kokand district, from 4,500-7000 ft. 



i. var. diapliana, Staud., "Bed. Ent. Zeit.," xxxi., p. 31 (1887). — About 80 

 specimens received from Manissadjian, collected at Hadjin, in central Southern Asia 

 Minor, in the middle of May. This var. comes very near the Alpine form, nubigena, 

 Led., and is somewhat smaller than typical pilosellae, and thinner scaled even than 

 var. nubigena. It differs especially from var. nubigena in the outer wedge-shaped 

 spot being more broadened outwardly, which in specimens of nubigena (from 

 Lederer's collection) is less broadened externally than in A. pilosellae. The wedge 

 spot is the broadest in female diapliana, in which also the other two red stripes are 

 larger, and confluent almost as in the ab. polygalae, Esper. The red markings are 

 also much duller and more transparent in diapliana than in nubigena. [The var. 

 polygalae I also obtained in abundance from Manissadjian from Malatea, where it was 

 captured in the middle of May. In these Malatian specimens, the whole fore- wings, 

 with the exception of only a narrow outer, and the inner, margin, are often of a 

 much brighter and deeper red than that of diapliana. Such specimens much 

 remind one of the Italian rubicundus, Hb., which, indeed, according to Dr. Stand- 

 fuss (Stett. Ent. Zeit., 1884, p. 207) is a good species. Erythrus, Bdv. (Mon. Zyg., 

 pi. i., fig. 6), which Standfuss refers, without hesitation, to rubicundus, Hb., fig. 137, 

 chiefly on account of the white hairs on the thorax, appears to me to be quite 

 different from rubicundus, Hb., fig. 137, and I possess also undoubted female A. 

 pilosellae from Amasia, which are even more strongly white-haired than the 

 Sicilian erythrus, and the specimens caught by Standfuss, at Abruzza, which he 

 refers to rubicundus, Hb. I consider that much more material is needed before the 

 matter can be cleared up.] 



k. ab. obscura, n. ab. — The upper, and, in a less degree, the lower, wings much 

 suffused with black, and but faint red markings visible. These dusky examples 

 were captured in Carnarvonshire, in 1891, by Blagg (Weir, Proc. Ent. Soc. Loud., 

 1891, p. xxxi). 



This appears to be a somewhat parallel form to A. filipendulae 

 ab. chrysanthemi. For the phenomenon presented by these dusky forms, 

 that are not strictly melanic, Weir suggested the term "phaeism." 



Ovum. — The egg is distinctly oval in outline, with a small oval 

 depression on the upper surface, length : breadth : : 5 : 4, uniformly 

 pale yellow in colour, one pole not noticed to be transparent (pro- 



