PLEHEIUS ARGUS. 193 



(1802-5); Tutt, " Brit. Butts.," p. 183(1896); Wheeler, " Butts. Switz.," etc., p. 43 

 (1903). — 1 . Of moderate size, the tint not much (if any) brighter than that of the 

 specimens from Central Europe, the border on the forewings rather narrow, 

 sometimes broken up into dots; the marginal border of the hindwing consisting 

 entirely of interneural dots. The ? dark fuscous, with a variable band of 

 orange lunules on the wings, sometimes developed on the hindwings and absent 

 on forewings, more often developed into a complete orange submarginal band. 

 Underside i , pale grey, with whitish submedian band, well-developed spots, and 

 orange lunules ; $ brown, well-developed spots, white submedian band and 

 strongly-coloured orange band on all the wings. 



This western form, from Asia Minor and Persia, is very nearly like that 

 of Central Europe. There are a number of specimens of tbis race under 

 the name of bella in the British Museum coll., which are little 

 different from the central European form. In certain side-lights 

 some examples suggest a faint orange shade, where are the 

 orange lunules in Herrich-Schaffer's illustration of bella, but 

 under a lens actual orange scales cannot be really traced. 

 These specimens come from (1) Brussa, two $ s and two £ s 

 " (Dieckemann, 1892)," whence came Herrich-Schaffer's original 

 example of bella. Of these, one $ has a narrower border on the fore- 

 wings than the other, which agrees with a Caspian example labelled 

 "Emba river, viii., '97 (Grum-Grshimailo)," and is not far from a 

 Hyrcanian g from the " Zeller coll.," labelled " bella ; Hyrcania 

 (Huene); Zeli. coll.," a specimen of undoubted aegon, of moderate size, 

 fairly good borders to forewings, hindwings with distinct marginal 

 dots ; with these is a ? , dark, no orange on the upperside except the 

 slightest trace of lunules on hindwings. A $ and $ labelled " N. 

 Persia (Funke, '84)" are of exactly the same form as Zeller's pair in 

 both sexes. The Brussa ? s, however, are different from these, being 

 rather small, and with a bright orange band on all the wings. Besides 

 these are two specimens, $ and £ , labelled " bella ; Asia Minor, ex 

 Staudinger (Godnian-Salvin coll.)." The $ has a narrow border to 

 the forewing, and dark marginal dots to hindwing, the $ with orange 

 (nearly a band) on all the wings. These specimens, no doubt, all 

 belong to the Asia Minor race of which Staudinger writes (Hor. 

 Soc. Ent. Ross., xiv., p. 233) : " I first took this species on June 

 4th, 1878, on the Jenikeui plateau, flying commonly till the middle 

 of July in scattered grassy places. These examples have a narrow, 

 quite broken, black border to the forewings, whilst, on the hindwings, 

 there is usually a marginal row of spots. This appears to me to be 

 characteristic of the bella $ as figured by Herrich-Schaffer, so that I 

 consider these taken near Amasia to belong to that form. Herrich- 

 Schaffer's figure, however, shows a few faint red marginal spots on 

 the upperside of the hindwings, which, however, do not appear in any 

 example from Amasia, but I consider this quite a secondary matter. 

 [A large J argm* ( = ar<iyro<jnomon), taken by me in Castile, has 

 similar red marginal spots as an aberration.] On the other hand, the 

 $ s of aegon taken near Amasia, show many more red marginal spots, 

 on the fore- as well as hindwings, than the German specimens, and 

 yet, in one $ , they are almost entirely absent. Two ? s exhibit on 



■ :; ' At this time (1878) Staudinger considered the Spanish hypochiona to be 

 argyrognomon. We have examples of argus taken by Chapman at Canales.Branuelas, 

 Vigo, Casayo, etc., with similar red spots ; so that this form occurs as an aber- 

 ration in most of the Spanish races (see postea). 



