PLEBEIUS AROUS. 195 



like both the species mentioned. The fringes are broadly white. The anterior 

 tibiae have a small, more or less conspicuous, spine, but always less than in aegon, 

 sometimes almost absent. The ? is sometimes black above, sometimes shaded 

 with blue, with a submarginal border of fulvous lunules, sometimes confluent on all 

 four wings, sometimes with none on the forewings, and more or less reduced on the 

 hindwings ; there are often black dots external to these, with an outer bordering of 

 white. It differs from argus, which it equals in size, by the wide black border of 

 the forewings, by the wider white fringes, by the black spots on the hindwings, 

 usually absent in argus, or not bordered with bluish-white, by the very often well- 

 marked tibial spine, and lastly by the knob of the longer antennre, coloured as in 

 aegon, which differs, however, from it, in the four wings being equally bordered 

 with black, and by the stronger tibial spine. Common in the mountains of 

 Granada (Rambur). 



Staudinger referred this (Cat., 2nd ed., p. 10) to P. argyrognomon, 

 with which it has really nothing in common ; in the 3rd ed., p. 78, 

 he treated it as a var. of argus, with the diagnosis " major subtus 

 albicans," to which he adds "an argyrognomon var. ?" Our best- 

 marked examples of this race (excluding casaicus and bejarensis) come 

 from Guethary, 6. vii. 1907 ; Tragacete, 18-26. vii. 1901 ; Cuenca, 

 1-14. vii. 1901; and Canales, 27. vi.-9. vii. 1901. These have the 

 characteristic violaceous- blue colour, the wide black margin to 

 the forewings, the marginal spots to the hindwing, and the shiny - 

 white underside. But there is besides, in this, as in all the 

 other Spanish races, considerable variation in the examples inter 

 se, and, whilst the other characters are maintained, the size 

 differs, the $ colour varies much in its tint of violet, the marginal 

 spots of the hindwing are occasionally edged with rufous, and there is 

 some difference in the width of the marginal border of the forewings, 

 hence we find the race hypochiona splitting up into the following $ 

 aberrational forms — ab. lilacina- minor, rufolunulata- minor, and a 

 combination of the two in the minor form, lilacina-rufolunulata ; the 

 lilacina forms having the ground colour lilac instead of bright blue, 

 and the rufolunulata with the two or three marginal spots on the hind- 

 wing near the anal angle with fulvous lunules. Oberthiir notes 

 (Etudes, v., p. 22) that, in Andalusia, in the neighbourhood of Granada 

 (Alfakar),and above Lanjaron, towards thePicachodeVeleta, his brother 

 took, in 1879, hypochiona in abundance ; this is, he adds " a variety 

 of aegon, and not, as Staudinger says, in his Catalog (1871), a variety 

 of argus. The $ differs from our (French) type of aegon by the shining- 

 brilliancy of its blue above, and by the remarkable shiny whiteness of 

 the underside ; the £ s, usually brown above, are sometimes tinged 

 with blue, the underside of a very lively pale yellowish-tawny, and the 

 little marginal golden-blue points very accentuated." Again he writes 

 (Etudes, xx., p. 28): "In the Sierra Nevada, and near Lanjaron, 

 the form hypochiona is found ; this form is remarkable for its great 

 size, the shiny white colour of the underside of the hindwings in the 

 J , the blue tinge, and the development of the orange marginal 

 border above in certain ¥ s, and the light tawny tint beneath. It 

 appears to be the southern race ; one sometimes finds it in an 

 attenuated form at Montpellier, Marseille, and Vernet-les-Bains." In 

 the British Museum coll., under the name hypochiona, are two $ s, one 

 2 , " Sierra de Alfakar (Bene Oberthiir), July, 1879; " one J , three 

 2 s " Sierra de Alfakar (Bibbe); " one ? , " Stispana (Leech coll.);" 

 these S s are fairly large, with well-marked margin to forewings, and 

 discoidals to all wings, the hindwings with marginal dots; underside 



