POLYOMMATUS ICARUS. 12& 



the wider-banded form has been already at least twice named, 

 once by Bergstrasser as caiidybus, and more recently by Courvoisier as 

 latimargo. The hindwings of the £ are occasionally marked 

 with small interneural marginal black spots ; tbis feature has 

 become almost racial in the Mauretanian form, celiua, Aust., and 

 the latter name has been generally applied to such forms ; but celina 

 is a local race, named on general characters, the specimens not always 

 possessing these spots, and characterised, in addition, by its wide outer 

 marginal band ; nothing can be more different than the large S s from 

 Ireland, Scotland, or even Germany, in which these spots are present, 

 and the smaller celina race in which they so frequently occur, and so we 

 apply Cockerell's name niyroniaculata to the normal specimens 

 presenting this character. Blachier considers that the tendency to 

 develop these spots is much more marked in the valleys south of the 

 Alps than in those north ; rarely more than traces occur, he says, in 

 the better "marked examples from the northern localities, but well- 

 developed spots in the southern ones. Grund has named the small 

 minor examples with these marginal spots nana. Occasionally, and 

 only to a very slight extent, a $ of the nif/romaciilata form shows the 

 slightest possible trace of reddish above the two marginal spots nearest 

 the anal angle of the hindwings, thus forming a parallel variation to 

 Vlebeius argus ab. bella, etc. ; this form has been named rufopunctatus 

 by Neuburger. The variation in the $ is, however, much more extensive 

 than in the $ , and quite as wide a range occurs in this sex of the species 

 as in that otAyriades coridon and A. thetis. The direction of variation is 

 also parallel with that in these species in (1) intensity of ground colour, 

 (2) number and intensity of submarginal orange lunules, (3) the tone 

 and amount of the blue scaling, (4) the presence of white markings setting 

 off the spotted areas. There is, in addition, a most marked character 

 in the form of a wedge-shaped dash (cimeata) that is sometimes 

 strongly developed in the discal area of the hindwings, and 

 corresponding more or less with the white dash found in the same 

 position on the underside of these wings, and often causing considerable 

 modification in the character of the blue scaling ; whilst the tendency 

 to the outlining of the discoidals in both wings, either in white or pale 

 blue, or even as wholly white or blue spots, is also noticeable, as is, 

 further, the white or blue lunular edging to the orange lunules of all the 

 wings. Von Kottem burg recognised much of the $ variation when he des- 

 cribed the species (see antea p. 115), although Bergstrasser, Esper, and 

 other authors failed badly with some of the common forms. There are 

 three very distinct tints in the ground colour of the 5 — (1) quite brown or 

 fuscous ( = type), (2) black-brown (sometimes almost leadenbrown) ( = 

 atrescens), whilst occasionally the ground colour is (3) paler than in the 

 type and with a somewhat greyish tinge (pallescens) . These are all 

 similarly marked with (or without) fulvous submarginal lunules, and 

 are similarly scaled with blue, so that any tabulation applicable 

 to the brown or typical form is equally applicable to the others, and to 

 which the names applied in the tabulation (see infra) should be applied 

 in combination with atrescens or yallescens as the case may be. All the 

 forms, too, are equally scaled with blue. The fulvous marginal lunules 

 of the upperside are usually full-coloured, but sometimes they are quite 

 pale yellow (flavescens), at others of a deep orange, approaching red 

 (aurescens), especially in some of the southern summer forms, in which also 

 a tendency to an extension of the lunules towards the centre of the wings 



