196 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



colour white, just a little paler than the examples from Gavarnie. The 

 $ s of a brown ground colour, one with good orange bands on all the wings, 

 with blue base to the forewings, and blue over the whole of the lower 

 half of the hindwings, from base to orange lunules ; two other $ s with 

 strong bright orange bands on all- wings ; another $ with weak orange 

 lunules on all the wings ; one $ with only the barest traces of an orange 

 border on inner edge of marginal spots on hindwings, which are, how- 

 ever, externally margined with white. The underside of the 2 s, pale 

 brownish ; the spots well-developed, and a moderately marked submedian 

 whitish band ; in both sexes the orange of the underside of a pale 

 tint, the metallic eyes well-developed. The other examples under this 

 name in the British Museum coll., appear to be wrongly placed. 

 Siepi says that the var. hypochiona is commoner and more widely 

 distributed than the type in the Bouches-du-Rhone, at Plan d'Aups and 

 Ste. Baume; it is also recorded from Sorede in the Pyrenees- Orientales 

 by Spriingerts, etc. 



6. var. hypochiona-graeca, n. var. Hypochiona, Stand., " Hor. Soc. Ent. Ross.," 

 vii., p. 48 (1871). Argus var., Stand., " Cat.," 2nd ed., p. 10 (1871).— The majority 

 of the specimens (Grecian) belong to the southern form described by Rambur as var. 

 hypochiona , which is principally distinguished by the almost white colour of the 

 underside. Further, the fringes of the c? s in var. hypochiona are entirely white, 

 whilst in argas (i.e., argyrognomon) only the extreme tips are white. In the J the 

 black marginal spots of the hindwings are very sharply marked on the upperside, 

 whilst the $ s have generally a well-defined, red, outer band, frequently with a 

 whitish edge before the marginal line, which, strangely, is also found in the high 

 northern specimens of argus (Staudinger, "Beitrag zur Lep. Griechenlands," Hor. 

 Soc. Ent. Ross., vii., p. 48). 



At the time of describing these examples Staudinger erroneously 

 referred them to P. argyrognomon, as also did he the Spanish examples 

 of hypochiona, Rbr. But there are, in the Brit. Mus. coll., one $ and 

 one 2 of these 1867 captures, labelled "argus var. hypochiona, 

 Schulz, 1869, Zell. coll.," the <? is further labelled by Zeller 

 "Parnass, '67, Rb. Cat., p. 35." The $ is fairly large, the upperside 

 not unlike that of hypochiona, with fairly wide margin on forewings, 

 and marginal spots on hindwings. On the underside, however, the $ 

 is much less white than are the undersides of the Alfakar hypochiona; 

 it is, indeed, whitish-grey, less bluish-white than our southern British 

 race, but nearer this than the white of the Alfakar examples. The ? 

 paired off with it is (as also the one above, also labelled " Schulz, 

 Zeller coll.") apparently argyrognomon. Perhaps this mixture of 

 species in the Greek specimens, referred by Staudinger to hypochiona, 

 explains Staudinger's erroneous reference of this name to argus= 

 argyrognomon. As late as 1878, Staudinger was very weak on these 

 species, for he writes (Hor. Soc. Ent. Boss., xiv., p. 234): " The horny 

 claw of the front tibia in many acyon is very rudimentary .... 

 and I am doubtful whether L. argus and L. acyon have everywhere yet 

 developed into two properly separated species, and hybrids between 

 these very close species are not at all impossible." For two species so 

 structurally unlike as these, such a remark from Staudinger is almost 

 incomprehensible. 



l. ab. hejarensis, Chapm., " Proc Ent. Soc Lond.," p. xxxv (1902); "Ent. 

 Rec," xiv., p. 355 (1902) ; " Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond.," p. lxxxix 

 (1900). Argun var., Chapman, " Ent. Pec," xv., p. 72 (1903).— Taken 



<! * In this paper Staudinger uses tho name argus for argyrognomon, and aegon 

 for argus. 



