250 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



(b) Frange entrecoupee — battus, Ochs., hylas, Fab. (panoptes, Hb.). 



Section iii.— L'espace blanchatre plus rapproche de Tangle anal, et formant 

 deux grosses taches depassant la serie antemarginale, et souvent marquees 

 d'un point noir — orbitulns, Ochs. (aquilo, Bdv.), donzelii, Bdv., eumedon, Ochs. 



Division ii. — Point de serie antemarginale de taches fauves lunulees sous les 

 inferieures. 



Section i. — Des faisceaux de poils sur le disque des ailes superieures, ou une 

 bandelette blanche longitudinale sous les inferieures, remontant presque 

 jusqu'a la base. Ailes inferieures toujours un peu, quelquefois fortement. 

 echancrees pres de Tangle anal dans les femelles — damon, Fab., dolus, Hub., 

 rippertii, Bdv., admetus, Ochs., meleager, Fab. (einnus, Hub.). 



Section ii. — Point de faisceaux de poils ni de bandelette, ailes tres-entieres — 



(a) Pas de points noirs sur la surface superieure des ailes — tolas, Ochs., acis, 



Ochs., sebrus, Hub., alsus, Fab., argiolus, Linn., pheretes, Ochs., cyllarus, 

 Fab., melanops, Bdv. (saportae, Hub.), marchandii, Bdv., lysimon, Ochs. 



(b) Une bande arquee de points noirs sur les ailes superieures, au moins dana 



Tun des deux sexes — erebus, Ochs., alcon, Fab., euphemus, Ochs., avion, Linn. 



So far, the name had only been used in a most heterotypical sense 

 for all the " blues," and even then only as a sectional name of 

 Zephyrits, Dalm., and Polyommatus, Vill. and Guenee, which, although 

 called genera, were really divisions equal to our superfamily Ruralides, 

 and comprised the "hairstreaks," "coppers," and "blues." By illustrat- 

 ing the original diagnosis of Cyaniris by argidnus (semiargus), however, 

 Dalman fixed the latter species as the type of Cyaniris from the inception 

 of the name. The later selection of argiolus as type, by Scudder, in 

 1872 (Sys. Rev., p. 55), was, therefore, altogether ultra vires, as also 

 was its maintenance by the same author, in 1875 (Hist. Sketch, 

 p. 151). Up to this time, practically nothing had been known of 

 Dalman's name, and hence, Moore, recognising the need of separating 

 argiolus and its Indian allies from the crowd of " blues " with which 

 they were placed, unfortunately followed Scudder (Lep. Cey., i., p. 74), 

 and was followed, in turn, by de Niceville (Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, iii., 

 pt. 2, p. 67), Distant (Rhop. Malay., p. 210), Doherty, etc. It was not 

 until 1906 that Prout, working through the early authors de novo, with 

 the idea of helping us to fix the generic types, discovered that Dalman 

 had taken argianus (semiargus) to illustrate his Zephyrid section 

 Cyaniris, and thus fixed the type at the time the name was created. 

 This led us to note (Ent. Rec, xviii., p. 131): — 



1816. — Cyaniris, Dalman. — Only argianus ( — semiargus) cited in the generic 

 synopsis (Vet. Ah. Hand., p. 63), therefore, this is the type. 



This was repeated almost contemporaneously (antea vol. viii., 

 p. 313), and has since been pretty generally used in the restricted 

 sense here indicated in this work, as well as in the faunal records of 

 many British collectors. 



Until quite recently it had been accepted almost as an article of 

 faith that semiargus was closely allied to minimus, and one finds the 

 two species in close proximity in most of the recognised Catalogues. 

 This supposed alliance has been based on the most superficial characters, 

 chiefly the similarity of the spotting and general appearance of the 

 underside of the wings of the two species. But this assumption is 

 contradicted by the structural details of every stage of the two species 

 —eg^, larva, pupa, and imago, and we have already pointed out 

 (antea pp. 41-43) that minimus belongs to the Everid, whilst semiargus 

 belongs to the Plebeiid, branch of the Lycasnids, so that they fall not 

 only in different genera, but in different tribes. A mere glance at the 



