150 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



Pre St.Didier, August, 1898; Fontainebleau, August, 1899, etc. As bear- 

 ing on the point that dwarf examples are sometimes strongly pigmented, 

 Jefferys notes that very small specimens of P. icartis, often not larger 

 than Cupido minimus, were taken in Dorsetshire in August, 1885, many 

 of the £ s of these smaller specimens being darker in colour than the 

 full-sized examples. In the British Museum coll. is a very small 

 2 from Rhodes (Zeller coll.), and two from Cyprus, a $ from 

 Sarnaca and a 2 not further specified (Glaze-now), also two $ s from 

 the " Bate coll.," one taken in May at Ctima., the other in September 

 at Platrus. Of minor forms showing other characteristics we 

 may mention one noted by Gillmer (Ent. Zeits. Gub., xix., p. 7) and 

 captured July 14th, 1904, at Nikolsburg, in Moravia, 21mm. in expanse, 

 the right forewing beneath of the form arcnata, the left semiarcuata. 

 There is no doubt the small size may be due to two entirely different 

 causes, besides a, perhaps, hereditary tendency to dwarfness in 

 occasional examples, viz., the placing of a larva badly with regard to 

 food during the winter and spring, in examples of the late spring or 

 early summer brood, and the hurrying of larva? by high temperature 

 (probably coupled with a somewhat sparse condition of the food) in the 

 late summer and the autumn broods. 



y. ab. labienus, Jermyn, "Butt. Coll. Vade Mecum," 1st ed., p. 58 (1824) ; 

 Humph, and Westd., "Brit. Butts.," p. 108 (1841). Icarus var. y, Stphs., 

 " Illus. Brit. Lep. Haust.," L, p. 92 (1828). Eros, Wood, " Ind. Ent.," p. 8, pi. 

 iii., tig. 70 (1839). Pusillus, Gerh., " Mon. Schmett.," p. 15, pi. xxviii., figs. 

 Sa-c (1851); Swinton, "Ent. Mo. Mag.," xxxiv., p. 184 (1898); Gillm., "Int. 

 Ent. Zeits. Gub.," ii., p. 178 (1908). — P. labienus. Antenna? black, girdled with 

 white, their clubs being brown with black rings ; wings above, pink-blue ; the 

 upper pair of wings have the anterior margin white without cilia, the exterior 

 margin dark brown with very short cilia ; the lower pair bordered with dark brown 

 and edged with short white cilia ; beneath both pairs of wings at their bases are 

 dark with pearly scales. Upper pair with nine ocellar, six subtriangular, and six 

 subocellar, black spots, the lower pair with eleven ocellar spots ranged in the form 

 of a triangle, having in their centre a large triangular white spot with a black 

 pupil ; also eight triangular black marks, and seven subocellar black spots. This 

 species has no fulvous spots beneath. Bare (Jermyn). 



Humphreys and Westwood (Brit. Butts., p. 108) state that they 

 have redescribed Kirby's specimen that Miss Jermyn named labienus; 

 they note it as " of very small size, not expanding more than 10-t 

 lines, the upperside of a very pale lilac-blue, the spots on the 

 underside very small, the lower spot at the base of the forewings 

 obsolete, only five spots in the curved row beyond the middle 

 of the discoidal cell, and the fulvous lunules almost obsolete, the 

 two basal spots on the costa of the hindwings large and black." 

 Although Westwood adds " I have made this description from Kirby's 

 original specimen for which the name Polyommatus labienus was 

 proposed," he does not explain why his description of the underside 

 spotting differs from that of Miss Jermyn. Still this is a minor 

 matter, as Humphreys and Vvestwood had suggested that the name 

 should hold for all small specimens, the g s of which were of pair 

 likic-blue colour. Stephens, in 1828, had referred labienus to icarus as 

 a form of "very pale lilac-blue colour above, the fulvous beneath 

 very obsolete." The type was taken in a meadow at Wrabness, Essex, 

 at the beginning of August. [Dale refers (Hist. Brit. B>utts., p. 71) a 

 3 in his collection to this name. The specimen is now in the Hope 

 Museum, Oxford, and agrees fairly with the description, but isof ordinary 



