POLYOMMATUS ICARUS. 157 



Common, June 7th, 1907 (op. cit., 1902, p. Ill); Buckstone, a small 

 specimen (ab. nrinor-obsoleta) taken on the chalk slopes between Seven- 

 oaks and Shoreham, Kent, on September 11th, 1906 (in litt.) (op. cit., 

 1908, p. 97). Oberthiir states (Etudes, etc., xx., p. 23) that the species 

 sometimes lacks the black spots on the underside completely, e.g., a g 

 from Besancon, taken by Fritsch, and altogether analogous with 

 Agriades coridon ab. cinnus (i.e., ab. corydonis, Bergstr.). Almost all 

 the possessors of this form describe their specimens as having weak 

 marginal spots on the forewings, and the colour pale, so that there can 

 be, one feels, no essential difference between obsolete* , Clark, and persica, 

 Bienert. We still think it would have been wise toj include them 

 under the same name. 



v. ab. persica, Bien., " Lep. Ergebnisse," p. 29 (1870); Staud., "Cat.," 

 2nd ed., p. 12, in part (1871); Biihl, "Pal. Gross-Schmett.," p. 268 (1893); Tutt, 

 "Brit. Butts.," p. 175 (1896); Lamb., " Pap. Belg.," p. 232 (1902); Bebel, " Berge's 

 Scbmett.," 9th ed., p. 70 (1909). — Alis subtus albidis, punctis ocellaribus et maculis 

 rubris extinctis (Bienert). 



Bienert, after describing this form thus, goes on to add that " this 

 is a very distinct aberration, agreeing on the upperside with the type 

 from north and central Europe; the underside differs, however, 

 essentially, the ground colour being nearly white, the central row of 

 eye-spots wanting, the marginal spots scarcely showing, the red lunules 

 reduced to pale shades, the white streak in cells three and four quite 

 unrecognisable." He further states that "other examples have sharply 

 defined black marginal spots, although the red lunules are scarcely 

 indicated," and that these " occur with examples of the typical form 

 at Nishapur, Ssabsevar, Chanlug and Meshet, from May to July." 

 There are, in the British Museum coll., a large number of specimens 

 from different parts of Persia, mostly typical and offering no real differ- 

 ence from European. Occasionally, in Persia and Syria — Askhabacl, 

 Tekke, Afka — however, a $ form occurs as a rare aberration with 

 whitish underside, weak spotting, grey marginal lunules, and weak 

 orange lunules ; this form becomes racial farther east in Afghanistan, 

 etc., and it is a rare aberration of this form, with the ocellated and red 

 spots extinct, that Bienert describes. We suspect that the aberration is 

 as rare in Asia as in Europe, and is not essentially different (except 

 probably its whiter ground colour) from the ab. obsoleta already described. 

 If it is to be retained separately as .an aberration distinct from obsoleta, 

 it can only be as a quite analogous Asiatic form of paler ground colour 

 on the underside. We find no other essential difference whatever. 

 The synonymy references we give refer to persica as an Asiatic 

 form, not as noted (Int. Zeits. Guben., iv., p. 3) under the name of caeca, 

 to a Central European form. 



[£. ab. vacua, Grillm., "Int. Zeits. Gub.," iv., p. 4 (1910). — Entirely without 

 markings on tbe underside ; without submedian and basal eyespots, without 

 discoidal lunules, without marginal spots, without orange lunules, and witbout 

 black bordering chevrons (Gillmer).] 



Gillmer gives no data concerning the existence of any specimen 

 agreeing with the description, indeed, he positively states that he 

 knows of none, so that the name has no standing, being applied to a 

 purely hypothetical aberration. Those examples with a discoidal (or 

 traces of it) on the forewings, Gillmer says, are " only to be regarded 

 as transitions to ab. vacua, which is not known as an ab. of P. icarus 

 at all, but of A. coi'ldon'' [i.e., our already named obsoletissima (antea, 



