AGRIADES CORIDON. 75 



both A. condon and A. thetis, as to whether the black ring is central or 

 terminal (never basal ?). The cremastral area is similarly without 

 hooks, but has the same armament of hairs (the same as elsewhere but 

 rather longer). The abundance and darkness of the hairs in the 

 spiracular region is more marked than in A. thetis, in which they seem to 

 be appreciably fewer and paler. The swarm of lenticles is also rather 

 stronger in A. coridon. [Described September 7th, 1909, from pupa 

 obtained from larva found on the Stelvio above Fran zensh one, 

 August 13th.] On September 10th the eyes were darkening and 

 wings thickening, still ochreous, but of a brighter, more yellow, tint. 

 The imago emerged September 19th, 1909 (Chapman). The pupa is 

 rounded and entirely without projecting points or angles ; the 

 extremities are remarkably obtuse ; it is covered with short hairs, which, 

 however, are not very apparent without the use of a lens ; its colour is 

 a pale, dingy, greenish-brown, and the cases which envelop the 

 thoracic segments and wings have a semitransparent appearance 

 (Newman). The pupa is 5^-6 lines long, somewhat broad, quite hair- 

 less, dirty brownish-yellow, with conspicuous darker dorsal line and 

 somewhat whiter dorsal shield, and similar wing-cases and leg-cases ; 

 the latter are somewhat conspicuous. The eyes are not at all 

 prominent, and have, along the whole of their front edge, a shining, 

 polished, rather broad line, which seems to be a peculiarity of many 

 Lycaenid pupae, modified according to the species. The diagnosis for 

 the pupa of A. coridon would thus be : Pupa glabrous, brownish- 

 yellow, with a darker dorsal line on the abdomen ; thorax and wings 

 pale ; anterior margin of eyes polished. According to Boisduval the 

 pupa is yellowish or greenish-yellow, with very conspicuous eyes 

 producing a small, brighter projection — none of which description 

 corresponds with my pupa (Zeller). 



Comparison of pup^e of Agriades thetis and A. coridon. — The 

 differences between the pupae of A. thetis and A. coridon are very 

 slight ; to the naked eye it is doubtful whether there are any ; both are 

 green when they first assume the pupal state, both a rather dull 

 ochreous when fully mature, and just before the indications of the 

 developing imago withm first appears. My own impression, liable to 

 be mistaken owing to never having pupae of the two species of the same 

 age side by side, is that that of A. thetis preserves the green colour more 

 persistently; that whilst, for instance, the wings of A. coridon soon 

 become pale ochreous, those of A. thetis retain a fairly green tint, if 

 not so clear and bright as at first, until the time when the opacity of 

 the developing wings within occurs and dominates the tint. As to 

 size, relative proportions, etc., both species show a range much beyond 

 the difference, if any, between them. When we come to minute 

 structural details, we find a remarkable identity of characters. 

 For instance, the hairs generally are of ordinary form, straight and 

 pointed, but, in both species, those around the 6th abdominal spiracle 

 are clubbed, or rather are shortened with a knob at the end ; in a few 

 specimens this tendency slightly affects the 7th abdominal segment, 

 and in one or two cases is not very pronounced in the 6th. I have 

 not met with this peculiarity in pupae of other Lycaenids, but 

 then those I have examined closely enough are very few, e.g., 

 have not detected it in Polyommatus icarus, the nearest species to these 

 two. In both species a few of these clubbed hairs occur on the pro- 



