124 ' BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



from Italian (including Sicilian), Syrian, and Asia Minor, material, 

 compared with his knowledge of the species in Germany, he had fair 

 grounds for the suggestion. Gillmer also indicates (Int. Ent. Zeits. 

 Gub., ii., p. 1) a similar seasonal difference, noting particularly that 

 the 2 s have more blue scaling on the upperside of the wings in 

 spring, the summer examples wanting this more or less, the blue 

 scales being sometimes entirely absent. This is the main feature 

 on which the supposed difference in the seasonal forms is based, 

 and is, as noted above, only partially accurate when one considers 

 the species throughout its whole range, e.g., Siepi states (Cat. Lep. 

 Bouches-du- Rhone, p. 39) that the 2 ab. caerulea is often met with 

 throughout the Bouches-du-Rhdne district, particularly in the second 

 brood, whilst, as noted above, in Britain, where the blue 2 s are 

 much more abundant than elsewhere, it often happens that one may 

 capture, in the summer brood, in August and September, scarcely 

 a single brown 2 , all being more or less strongly scaled with blue 

 and identical with the spring examples. Oberthur indicates (Etudes, 

 xx., p. 23) that the blue ? s are more abundant in certain countries 

 and districts, e.g., in England, he says, they are often of a pale but bright 

 blue with a very special facies ; in Brittany, he adds, the 2 s are some- 

 times blue, but then the tint is darker than in the English race, but he 

 avers that the most beautiful blue form comes from Algeria and has the 

 red-spotted margin very wide. That the blue form of the 2 occurs some- 

 times very locally is indicated in a report by Adkin, who states (Proc. South 

 Land. Ent. Soc, 1890-1, p. 170) that the majority of the 2 s observed 

 at Eastbourne in August, 1891, were brownish, although, in one old 

 disused chalkpit, those scaled with blue were more numerous ; whilst 

 we ourselves note that, in August, 1887, when the species was most 

 abundant at Deal, almost all the specimens were more or less scaled 

 with blue, but the 2 s taken in September, 1907, at Cuxton, hardly 

 showed any scaled heavily with blue, yet Hodgson observes (FJnt. Bee, 

 xix., p. 305) that the specimens taken in Surrey and Sussex earlier in 

 the season showed an unusually large proportion of blue. As con- 

 trasting with the brown autumnal examples taken at Cuxton in the 

 autumn of 1907, and agreeing with the blue 2 s taken at Deal in 1887, 

 it is noted (Ent. Rec, xxi., p. 227) that, at Folkestone, in September, 

 1909, when the species again was exceedingly abundant almost all the 

 $ s were blue-scaled and we find recorded a variety of different forms 

 captured. These are noted as — 



(1) Entirely lilac-blue, with red marginal spots. 



(2) Rather darker blue, with red marginal spots, pale blue arches above orange 

 lunules of hindwings, and pale spots to complete usual row of orange lunules near 

 apex of forewings. 



(3) Blue-tinged, with pale discoidal spots on forewings, and pale arches and 

 pale discoidal spots on hindwings. 



(4) Purple-blue limited to basal and median areas of wings. 



(5) Entirely brown, except for faint basal tinge of blue and orange marginal 

 lunules on all wings. 



South also notes (Proc. South Lond. Ent. Soc, 1909-10, pp. 106-7) 

 that, in June, 1909, on the North Downs, between Chipstead and 

 Oxted, all the 2 s (but one) observed, were more or less scaled with 

 blue, and, of sixteen picked examples, he notes further that — 



(1) Not a single specimen was found wholly free of orange lunules or spots, 

 though one or two came near having them entirely absent. 



