CUPIDO, 103 



species placed originally in the genus, nor do they appear to have any 

 generic connection with any of Schrank's species. In 1870, Kirby, in 

 a paper entitled "Generic Nomenclature of Diurnal Lepidoptera " 

 (Journ. Linn. Soc. Zool., x., pp. 498-499), writes of the genus Cupido, 

 " The true type of Oupido appears to be alms" He does not here, 

 however, give his reason, but Scudder notes (Hist. Sketch, p. 293) that 

 Kirby has written him that this was because " Schrank confounds alsus 

 and argiades as sexes under his puer, and the name puer seems to have 

 suggested Cupido," which Scudder says seems to him " rather strained." 

 Now we have often thought that Cupido was suggested by the vigorous, 

 active, open love-making of the Lr^caenids, but whether " puer " had 

 anything to do with it is another matter, and, apart from this fanciful 

 reason, we have to deal with the facts, and, as we agree that puer = 

 argiades -f- alsus (minimus) (see antea, p. 52), there can be no doubt that 

 minimus was included in Schrank's original species, and that Kirby's 

 selection of minimus as type was not only the first selection made but 

 quite legitimate. His later action, therefore, of changing his type to 

 the other sex of puer, i.e., argiades (Handbook of Lepidoptera, ii., p. 85), 

 is quite ultra vires, and it is clear that the transference of a generic type 

 in this way would lead to endless confusion. Here, too, Kirby elabor- 

 ates his idea for making puer the type, for he says : " The only species 

 which Schrank described at unusual length under Cupido, was C. puer, 

 which subsequently proved to include two species, C. argiades and C. 

 alsus, placed together as $ and £ . The large space given to C. puer, 

 in conjunction with the name is sufficient to establish the $ (C. 

 argiades) as the indubitable type of Cupido," and this in spite of the 

 fact that he had chosen the ? for this purpose more than 20 years 

 before. It may be noted that, in 1871, Kirby uses (Syn. Cat., p. 345) 

 Cupido, for most of the " blues," some 300 species, including all those 

 in Schrank's sect. B. Scudder's statement in 1875 (Historical Sketch, 

 p. 149) that " Cupido may be retained for the group represented by the 

 first two species of the second section, with arion for type, is clearly 

 barred by Kirby's action five years earlier, and, on this ground, we 

 accepted alsus = minimus as type, in 1896 (Brit. Butts., pp. 156, 160). 

 In 1881, Moore described a group of small Indian Plebeiid Lycasnids, 

 under the name of Zizera (Lep. Ceylon, i., p. 78), his diagnosis agreeing 

 with the Indian species, but he curiously named minimus the type of 

 the genus, although this species is quite different in its neuration and 

 genitalia. It is clear that the generic name and description must go 

 with the group of Indian species described under it, and not to minimus, 

 which belongs to an entirely different tribe. Evidently Kirby later 

 regretted his action of 1870, in selecting alsus (= $ puer), for, besides 

 altering the type of Cupido from alsus ($ puer) to argiades (£ puer) 

 (Handbook, &c, p. 85), he uses Moore's name Zizera for minimus 

 (op. cit., p. 105), but these changes are evidently as unallowable as 

 they are undesirable, and Cupido must be retained for the group that 

 has minimus for type. 



The actual alliance between Everes and Cupido appears to 

 be a very close one. Superficially it would appear that Binghamia 

 (parrhasius) is much nearer Everes (argiades) than is Cupido 

 (sebrus and minimus), but the ancillary appendages suggest that the 

 converse is the case, Cupido (minimus) being, at least in this particular, 

 very much nearer to E. argiades than are Binghamia (parrhasius), and 



