POLYOMMATUS ICARUS. 159 



from icarus and named icarinus*, under which name, or some other if preferred, 

 it must for the future be listed (Scharfenberg). 



Esper's medon [Schmett. Eur., i., pi. xxxii. (cont. viii.), fig. 1] 

 appears to be the first certain figure of this form, although there is not 

 much doubt in our own mind that it is also Scopoli's cdexis var. 1 

 (Ent. Cam., p. 179). As we however, used (antea, p. 141) Esper's name, 

 medon, for the upperside form of the $ with bright orange spots on all 

 the wings, we are retaining the name icarinus for this aberration. It 

 is widely distributed, apparently, throughout the range of the species, 

 in some places rare, in others as common as the typical form, whilst, 

 in others, again, it is much more common, and almost racial. It 

 occurs in both sexes, and hence the early authors often insisted on it 

 being a distinct species, in spite of v. Rottemburg ? s warning that 

 "differences in the spotting of the underside of forms of this 

 species should not be assumed to denote specific difference." 

 Thus Freyer (Neu. Beitrdge, vii., p. 133) gives a long account of this 

 form under the name alexins; Gerhard (Mon. Schmett., p. 15), under 

 Boisduval's name thersites ; but Esper, Stephens, and other authors, 

 have dealt with it as an aberration of P. icarus, and since the publica- 

 tion of Staudinger's Catalog, 1st ed., in 1861, no attempt has been 

 made to maintain it as a separate species. The aberration occurs, 

 usually not commonly, all over the British Isles with the type, in 

 Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hants, Devon, Herts, etc., in the south, in 

 both sexes and in both broods ; it occurs on the slope of the Ragleth, 

 in Shropshire, in the midlands ; in Durham, etc., in the north of 

 England ; at Rannoch, etc., in Scotland; Sligo, Markree, Castletown, 

 Co. Cork, and elsewhere, in Ireland, but here also, Kane says, only 

 occasionally with the type. T. B. Fletcher notes (in litt.) the capture, 

 on June 4th, 1904, of two J ab. icarinus and onej' ab. candiope {i 'phis) at 

 Rame Head, Cornwall, whilst, at the same place, on June 25th, 1904, 

 two out of four examples captured were of the ab. icarinus; this form is 

 recorded from Folkestone, September 11th, 1909 (Bell), and $ s from 

 Munden, Herts, September 1st, 1909 (Reuss). In most parts of 

 France, it occurs occasionally with the type, but in other parts, e.g., in 

 the lower valleys of the Dauphiny Alps — Bourg d'Oisans, Bourg d'Aru, 

 La Grave (August, 1896), at Clelles (July 30th-August 3rd, 1906), etc., 

 the form is abundant and almost racial in both sexes ; at Cannes it is 

 common (Warburg), occurs with the type at Nice, and is abundant to 

 the north of Grasse (Bromilow). We found it in both sexes in 

 the spring at Draguignan (May 2nd-6th, 1905), Pont du Gard (May 9th, 

 1905), S s at Auribeau (end of April, 1898), and at Digne (mid- April, 

 1897). It occurs at le Lautaret at an elevation of 7000 ft., at Digne 

 in the April and August broods (August 18th, 1906), at Abries 

 (August, 1900), in both sexes between Colmars and Alios, etc. It is 

 very abundant in both sexes in some seasons at Gresy-sur-Aix 

 (July 21st, 1897, August 21st, 1906), at Bourg St. Maurice (August 1st- 

 7th, 1898, August lst-5th, 1905). Bellier reports (Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr., 

 ser. 3, vi., p. 308), on Guenee's authority, that the form was not rare 



* It would seem from this that the name icarinus was already in use when 

 Scharfenberg wrote, but no earlier publication of the name is known, and the 

 earliest references to the name refer it to Scriba's Journal, p. 216, and assign it to 

 Scriba, who, however, did not write this article in his Journal, p. 216, the name 

 icarinus occurring in a paper by Scharfenberg. 



