272 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



colour, but with narrow border, the ? fuscous, and of the same size 

 as the cT • [(4) $ . "Thian-Schan Or. (Gr.-Gr.)." like the Namangan 

 specimen with regard to its border, but larger, bluer in colour ; the 

 underside with pale marginal lunules on the hindwings (the only 

 central Asiatic specimen in which this appears to be noticeable in the 

 British Museum coll.).] 



The Eaces of the Orient.' 



This species undergoes its greatest modification in the countries of 

 south-eastern Europe and south-western Asia, i.e., in the Balkan 

 Peninsula, Asia Minor, Armenia, Transcaucasia, north Persia, and 

 Syria, the most extreme forms being developed in Morea, its most 

 southern locality in Europe, and the Lebanon, its most southern 

 locality on the mainland of Asia. The extreme variation is in three 

 distinct directions, viz., smaller size, development of orange in the 

 submarginal areas of all the wings, and development of the well- 

 known marginal lunular spots on the underside of all the wings. 

 These three characters more or less combined, lead to a series of most 

 beautiful local races known as balcanica, n. var., bellis, Frr. (parnassia, 

 Stand.), helena, Staud., antiochena, Led., mesopotamica, n. var., inter- 

 media, n. var., and persica, n. var. These have been so mixed up, and 

 the names so misused by Staudinger and more recent collectors in these 

 districts, that nothing but the excellent series of specimens, including 

 co-types of many of them, in the British Museum coll., has enabled us 

 to work out the details concerning each. Our descriptions will show 

 the main features of the races and their distribution. 



a. var. balcanica, n. var. Parnassus, Nich., "Ent. Rec," xii., pp. 32, 69 

 (1900). Semiargus, Caradja, " Iris," viii., p. 40 (1895); Elwes, " Trans. Ent. Soc. 

 Lond.," p. 195 (1900); Rebel, " Lep. Fn. Balk.," i., p. 193 (1903).— 3 , 34mra.-38rnm. 

 ? , 32mm.-39mm. The c? of a deep purple-blue colour, with broad dark marginal 

 border ; well-defined discoidal lunules and suffused nervures. ? of an uniform, 

 dark, fuscous-brown. Underside in both sexes almost typical with well-defined 

 spots, traces of two or three fulvous crescents sometimes developed near the 

 anal angle of the hindwings. Taken in Bosnia and Bulgaria. 



The specimens in the British Museum coll. show this to be a very 

 distinct race, the largest, indeed, represented in this coll., from Europe 

 and Asia. It has nothing in common with the vars. bellis (parnassia) 

 and helena, which it much exceeds in size, width of marginal border 

 (3), depth of colour (in both sexes), absence of orange lunules on 

 upperside of hindwings ( 2 ), and other characters. The underside is 

 essentially typical in the forewings and the hindwings also, except that 

 it shows sometimes as an aberrational form traces of one or two 

 (rarely more) fulvous crescents near the anal angle of the hindwing. 

 Mrs. Nichol) records it (Ent. Bee, xii., p. 32) as occurring in the 

 Struma Valley), on June 18th, 1899, the specimens not so well-marked 

 as at Slivno (where, according to Kebel, the specimens are of the 

 smaller form parnassia). Elwes says (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1900, 

 p. 195) that " this insect was the commonest, and, indeed, the only, 

 Lycsenid at high elevations in the Rilo Dagh in 1899, where it was 

 very common at 5000ft. -7000ft., and, perhaps, higher ; most, but not 

 all, of the specimens showing, on the hindwing below, the reddish 

 marginal spots said to be characteristic of the var. }mrnassia, Staud., 

 from Greece, but that is normally a small form, and all the Rilo 



