PLEBEIUS ARGUS. 177 



him remarkable in having a pale ground colour, and particularly promi- 

 nent white submedian band ; in Swiss examples, he says, the ground tint 

 is more or less dirty grey, and the white band less apparent ; whilst 

 <rillmer states that, in Anhalt, the underside of the<? s vary 'from ashy- 

 to bluish-white, with a white band between the submedian row of 

 spots and the margin of the hindwings. Frey records specimens from 

 the Valais with greyish -brown underside, and very small ocellated 

 spots. We have, however, dealt somewhat at length with the 

 particular coloration of the underside in our notes on the various local 

 races. The colour of the spots beneath is usually black, with pale 

 rings, but in those with white ground colour the rings are of course 

 obliterated. In the var. Corsica, however, the spots are mere areas of 

 the pallid, washed-out ground colour, surrounded by white rings. 

 The number of spots in the submedian row of the forewings is seven, 

 of the hindwings nine, of which six and seven in forewings, and seven 

 and eight in the hindwings are more or less united; very rarely 

 a minute dot appears quite on the costa of the forewings, thus 

 making the double dot seven and eight in both fore- and hind- 

 wings. Apart from this extra dot, the most; frequent absentees 

 are seven, or six and seven in the forewings. There is very occasion- 

 ally a spot between the discoidal and base of forewing — ab. unipuncta, 

 whilst between the discoidal and base of hindwing there may be 

 four, three, two, one, or none, the usual numbers being three or two, 

 four, so far, having been found only in the $ s ; the longest to stay in 

 this basal row is the upper (costal) one, which, perhaps, really belongs 

 to the submarginal series. There is a distinct bend in the submarginal 

 row on the forewings at the fifth spot, the fifth, sixth, and seventh 

 sometimes shifting their position so far as to come directly under, and 

 form a straight line of dots with, the discoidal, reaching to the inner 

 margin (ab. lined), very striking and conspicuous in two examples 

 from Bourg St. Maurice, but also present in others. The spots vary 

 much in size, sometimes being exceedingly small ( = ab. parvipuncta, 

 n. ab.), more often, however, exceptionally large, and sometimes slightly 

 ■extended ( = ab. magnipuncta, n. ab.), e.g., Blachier notes (in litt.) two 

 3 s (one from Binn, in Valais, the other from le Lavandou, Var) in 

 which all the ocellated spots are extremely developed, and all of the 

 same large size ; Turner also records (Proc. Sth. Land. Ent. Soc, 

 1895, p. 42) a $ from Ashdown Forest with specially large spots on 

 the underside. Some have unequal and irregularly-formed dots, 

 three and five being usually the more extended ( = ab. irregularis, n. 

 ab.). Blachier notes (in litt.) that he took on June 6th, 1906, near 

 Geneva, a $ with the second, third, fourth, and fifth of the sub- 

 median row of spots on the underside of the forewings, prolonged 

 inwards in the form of streaks (ab. antic oradiata, n. ab.), the hindwing 

 spotting being normal ; Turner also records (Proc. South Lond. Ent. 

 Soc, 1895, p. 42) a similar aberration. Curtis, many years 

 ago, noted (Brit. Ent., fo. 8) the variation in the size of the 

 spots, and their occasional development into oval blotches ; the 

 elongation, however, is often irregular, and the spots are occasion- 

 ally extended upwards rather than lengthwise, whilst the tendency 

 is less frequent in the $ than in the $ . Raynor notes (in litt.), 

 a 5 , taken in Abbotts Wood, which has three horizontal wedge- 

 shaped streaks replacing the third, fourth, and fifth spots in the 



