ANTHROCERA LONICER.E. 



471 



in the Lep des Pyrenees, p. 31. The latter is still disinclined, we 

 believe, to see in the five-spotted dubia of the mountains the same 

 species as the insect from the environs of Nice, which Boisduval, 

 Duponchel, and others, have figured under the name of medicaginis. 

 His paper (Bidl. Ent. Soc. France, 1898, p. 22) on the Nice specimens is 

 the most recent authoritative essay on this species (or variety). He says : 

 " This is the species of which Duponchel says (Hist. Nat., supp. ii., 

 p. 74) that since his journey into Italy, he has found this Zygaena 

 abundant in a field near Nice." He then goes on to state that he has 

 now before him "about 160 specimens, captured in May, around the 

 station at Var ; amongst them is a yellow aberration. The species 

 varies much ; in about 20 examples the hind- wings are widely 

 bordered with steel-blue, or even overrun with this colour, so that 

 only a little red remains at the base, and a red point beyond ; other 

 specimens, on the contrary, have the steel-blue border very narrow, 

 and differ little in appearance from A. dubia and A. lonicerae. Usually 

 this Nice form of medicaginis has three well-separated red spots on the 

 upper wings, besides the basal spots ; they are often very small, rarely 

 large, and generally of a bright colour. Not a single specimen of the 

 160 has the spots confluent. A single $ shows a fourth supplemen- 

 tary red spot. It also flies in June in a higher locality in the vicinity 

 of Turbie. I have 140 specimens from this locality, seven have four 

 red spots on the upper wings (besides the basal), three have the fourth 

 spot rudimentary, and only shown by some red scales. The hind- 

 wings vary in the same direction (viz., by the spread of the marginal 

 border) as in the Var specimens. This form of A. medicaginis occurs 

 also near Digne, where it flies in May and appears very rare. I have 

 only two examples, both of which have the lower wings largely tinted 

 with blue. Boisduval has figured (Mon., etc., pi. iv., fig. 5) the medi- 

 caginis of Nice and Italy." We have obtained the insect also in the 

 mountains of Piedmont, but at a higher elevation, and hence later in 

 the year; August lst-12th, 1894, at Courmayeur, Val Chapy, near 

 Cogne, etc.; August 4th-15th, 1898, at Pre St. Didier ; whilst 

 Chapman obtained it near Mendel Pass in the Tyrol, throughout the 

 early and middle part o'f July, 1895, where quite typical A. lonicerae 

 occurred abundantly about a fortnight after medicaginis was over. 

 Christ has the insect from the Tyrol, Macugnaga, and the southern slope 

 of Mt. Cenis. He notes it as " a glossy insect, the dark margin of the 

 hind-wing reduced to a narrow margin, the red portions of the wings 

 brighter, and the dark parts more metallic." This he considers as " in- 

 termediate between stoechadis and typical A. lonicerae" and points out 

 that Staudinger has wrongly referred dubia to lonicerae, which, in spite 

 of its close connection with A. lonicerae, is itself the centre of a circle 

 of small, reduced forms. He then traces a connection geographically 

 between dark southern and lighter central European forms : (1) Stoe- 

 chadis, dubia, lonicerae. (2) Seriziati, syracusia, trifolii. These he 

 considers parallel series in the two species. He further agrees with 

 Frey (Lejt. der Schiveiz, p. 67), who considers " dubia to be a northern 

 form of Z. stoechadis, Bkh.," but Frey, however, does not suggest for 

 it a relationship with the large A. lonicerae var. major. We should be 

 inclined to agree in maintaining this (medicaginis) as a distinct 

 species, and place it here only as an expression of ignorance. Certain 

 it is that it is not a var. of A. trifolii, as suggested by Staudinger 



