BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



in the same season gets lengthy series from H) eres, Draguignan, Ste. 

 Maxime, Pardigon, Nice, Monte Carlo, Bordighera, and Kapallo, and 

 institutes a careful comparison, a good deal of overlapping will be 

 found to occur ; for what appear to be serious differences in colour, in 

 spotting, etc., when the comparison of specimens from any one of 

 these places is made with utterly different races of the species from 

 far-away countries, may quickly disappear when the allied races are 

 brought in series into juxtaposition. Barter's comparison of rezniceki 

 with the specialised races from Spain and Asia Minor, with which they 

 have nothing in common, is futile; almost equally so is the comparison 

 of these forms with Swiss examples. To determine their value as 

 local races, they want comparing with one another, and with the A. 

 coridon of other parts of Southern France and mid-Italy, w T here, under 

 approximately similar conditions, similar forms are more likely to be 

 found. Both Bartel and Reverdin make much of the specialisation of 

 the upperside $ colour of the forms they describe, yet they appear to 

 be almost, or quite, identical with that of our meridionalis, and these 

 latter again, are hardly distinguishable in this respect from the $ s 

 from Digne, Gresy-sur-Aix, the Verdon Valley, etc. We therefore 

 give the descriptions of these forms, and leave it to the future to 

 discover how far they are racial and why. We may add that as a 

 result of a lengthy correspondence Reverdin suggests that the general 

 racial form meridionalis breaks up into two sections locally that may 

 be recognised as — var. meridionalis, (a) forma rezniceki (pale underside, 

 etc.) ; (b) forma constanti (dark underside, etc.). 



a. var. meridionalis [-vernalis], Tutt, " Ent. Kec," xxi., p. 299 (1909); 

 " Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond.," p. lxxx (1909). Corydon, Tutt, "Ent. Rec," xvii., 

 p. 215 (1905). — c? . Rather smooth, delicate, but dull, silvery-blue in colour; 

 margin of forewings variable. ? with deep grey-brown underside. The spring 

 form of the Riviera race (from Hyeres, Draguignan, Ste. Maxime, etc.) (Tutt, Ent. 

 Rec, xxi., p. 299). Of a pale silvery-blue colour, the ground tint quite indis- 

 tinguishable from that of a very long series of examples taken at Gresy-sur-Aix 

 and other localities in Southern France (in July and August), varying somewhat in 

 glossiness, but apparently never of the bright blue tint not uncommon in specimens 

 found in Britain, the Swiss valleys (Val d'Herens, etc.), the French Pyrenees, 

 Fontainebleau Forest, and most other Central European localities ; the somewhat 

 dull appearance in some examples appears to be due to a thinness of scaling on the 

 outer discal area of the wings, a feature further intensified when the specimens are a 

 little worn; a darkening of the discoidal lunule in the forewings is marked in 42 

 i s, against 18 $ s that do not show it, but in some of the 42 it is so faint as to be 

 hardly discernible. The dark margin of the forewings is on the whole wide, but 

 varies from the almost linear (angustimargo) form to the extreme wide (marginata) 

 form, in which it extends over the outer third of the wing and along the costa to 

 the discoidal lunule ; the piuictata form is rare; the divisq form the most common, 

 a pale grey or whitish iividing line (representing the outer margin of the obsoletely 

 developed interneural ocellated spots) passing through the wide marginal band from 

 the costa to the inner margin ; on the hindwings the marginal band may consist 

 merely of a row of well-developed, clearly-defined, pale-cinctured, black spots, 

 whilst, in others, they are contained in a wide black margin that extends some 

 distance towards the disc of the wing, and on its inner edge forms a series of dark 

 united lunules. The colour of the underside of the <t s is somewhat variable, that 

 of the forewings usually dark grey (reminding one of that of A. tlwtit). that of the 

 hindwings with a slight tinge of brown in addition ; the black spots (including the 

 discoidal of forewihg) well developed, the margins pure white, the marginal ocella- 

 tions strongly developed, surmounted by strong blackish-grey chevrons on the fore- 

 wings, and by weak fulvous ones on the hindwings; in other examples the grey 

 ground is suffused witb whitish over the discal area of the forewings, leaving it, 

 however, sufficiently fj;i'ey for the white rings of the ocellated spots to show well, 

 whilst on the hindwings the marginal chevrons are surmounted by white, giving a 



