132 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



occurs in the fringe at the tip of the nervures, which gives to the edge 

 of the wing a festooned appearance reminding one of Plebeius 

 arffi/rognomon, that he has eight examples thus marked in his collection, 

 coming from Voirons (3), June 10th 1909, Bois des Freres, June 15th, 

 1909, Salins, July 4th, 1909, le Tour, July 22nd, 1908, Martigny (2), 

 August 22nd, 1906. Sometimes, but very rarely, similar little black 

 bars are found also at the end of- the nervures of the forewings, e.g., 

 Grosvenor exhibited, at the meeting of the City of London Entomological 

 Society, held October 2nd, 1906, a $ , captured at Witherslack, with 

 black dots in the fringes as in Agriades thetia. In. the Pickett coll. are 

 some exceedingly well-marked examples from Folkestone. Reverdin 

 notes (in Utt.) that, when the black tufts are also present at the tips of the 

 nervures in the forewings as well as the hindwings, the butterfly suggests 

 a faded A . thetis. This form with the black bars showing in the basal half 

 of the fringes of both wings we call fimbrinotata, n . ab. Harrison records 

 ( Ent. liec, xviii. , p. 217) a very peculiar division of the fringes that occurred 

 on the underside of several 2 s captured at Birtley, stating that, on the 

 upperside, the inner half of the fringes are grey, whilst, on the underside, 

 a dark brown or almost black line runs parallel to the margin and 

 bisects the fringes, but no $ s with this character were observed. The 

 underside variation is most interesting as to the difference in ground 

 colour, as well as in the size, number, and modification of the 

 spots. Sometimes the ground colour of the underside of all four 

 wings is of the same shade, but, generally, that of the hindwings 

 is rather darker than the forewings. Usually the underside of the 

 $ is of a pale grey, sometimes inclining to whitish (albescens), 

 at other times to bluish-grey (clarescens), dark grey (grisescens), yet again 

 to browmish-grey (fuscescens), being then very like that of the usual 

 tint of the 2 s. The underside of the 2 , though usually brownish, 

 is sometimes grey-brown (fuscescens), at other times yellow-brown 

 (cercinescens), or dark brown (brunnescens), whilst rarely it has almost a 

 blackish tint (obscurior). The southern 2 s sometimes have the underside 

 ground colour quite clear orange- or almost coffee-brown (brunnescens) 

 and are really very characteristic, others again are of quite a fawn colour 

 (cervinexcens) as also are some of the $ s, when the sexes are quite insepar- 

 able by this means. As to the variation in colour of the underside, 

 Hanbury notes that two $ s taken at Kirkwall have the colour of the 

 undersides quite brown, closely resembling that of an ordinary $ ; on 

 the other hand, Prideaux notes a^ taken near Atherfield, Isle of Wight. 

 in 1895, in which the usual fawn ground tint of the J s there is 

 completely usurped by pure white, the faw T n being restricted to a few 

 slashes along the wing rays ; Hanbury further observes that, near 

 Lochinver, Sutherland, the specimens taken July 13th, 1894, had the 

 ground colour of the undersides very pale. Staudinger remarks (Stett. 

 Ent. '/a<j., xlii., p. 288) that Haberhauer sent from Ala Tau and 

 Lepsa quite ordinary examples of /'. icarus, but that, with these, was 

 • i smaller form, which, instead of being grey (J ) or brown-grey (?) 

 on the underside, is greyish-yellow in both sexes, quite different from 

 all other /'. icarus ever seen from the most diverse localities; he 

 considered they might belong to a 2nd (or 3rd) brood taken near 

 Lepsa, or be a, special Steppe form. He further states (Hor. Soc. Ent. 

 Hoss., xiv., p. 212) that the colouring of the underside varies greatly 

 in the A. mas i an /'. icarus, the examples of the 1st brood from ash-grey 

 to grey-brown, those of the 2nd brood (and probably also the 3rd), being 



