180 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



This, of course, does not refer to our var. clara, the $ s of which 

 are the bluest forms we get in Britain, approaching the colour of 

 A. thetis, and particularly well-developed and racial on the extreme 

 western and north-western and northern coasts of the British Islands; 

 var. clara is without distinct reddish tint, a shade that is generally 

 present in our English form. As Oberthur notes, the blue $ forms 

 with pale lightening, appear to be peculiarly British. Most of these 

 forms we had already dealt with (antea, pp. 130-131) some time before 

 Oberthur had published the name tiitti as an inclusive racial name, in 

 fact, several of the forms were named in our British Butterflies, 1895. 

 Racially, and compared with our very long Continental series, the 

 British specimens, especially the ? s, are, as a rule, very distinct. 



Asiatic Forms. 



The description, from insufficient material, of various individual 

 specimens of P. icarus, as separate species, has led to much misunder- 

 standing and difficulty in dealing with the described forms, yet the 

 species itself is as characteristic in Asia as in Europe, and, on the 

 whole, retains peculiarly the European facies. Throughout Asia Minor, 

 Syria, and Palestine, according to elevation and habitat, the species 

 may be either of quite typical European form, except for a certain 

 brightness of the underside ground colour (var. turanica, Riihl), or small 

 and poorly pigmented, as is often found to be the case in the summer 

 brood in Europe ( = var. lucia, Gulot = labienus, Jermyn), but both with 

 well-developed spotting and marginal lunules beneath. Occasionally,, 

 in Syria and Persia, specimens are captured with the ground colour 

 of the underside almost white, the spots small, the marginal lunules 

 ill-developed, the orange being particularly weak and faintly coloured. 

 This form becomes racial in Beloochistan and Afghanistan, and was 

 described long since by Butler, as fugitiva in the spring, and persica in 

 the summer or autumn brood, the true persica, Bienert, being a mere 

 aberration of the Persian form with the basal and submedian spots on 

 all the wings absent, and the marginal spots much weakened (see 

 antea, p. 157). In the valleys of the mountain-mass of the Hmdoo- 

 Koosh, where Northern Afghanistan, Bokhara, Cashmere, Ferghana 

 (napaea, Gr.-Gr.), the Pamir (icadius, Gr.-Gr.), and Chinese Turkestan 

 (yarkundensis, Moore) meet, the species loses the lilac-blue tint that it 

 retains in the south-western corner of Asia and Siberia, and becomes 

 bright hylas-hlue in colour, retaining, however, a more lilac- or purple- 

 blue hue at high elevations, whilst the underside spotting is small, and 

 the underside ground colour light, the forms differing very slightly in 

 detail. This hylas-hlue colour of the J is maintained where the 

 species drops down into Thibet and the west boundary of China 

 (thibetana). From North Persia, through Bokhara, along the northern 

 valleys of the Altai to Amurland (where the species appears to be 

 rare), the appearance is much more typical, both in its purplish-blue 

 ground colour and in its underside tint and spotting ( — amurensis). 

 With regard to this form, we have, in our collection, two $ s labelled 

 " amurensis, from Margellan, Turkestan," but are unable to trace the 

 name, and suspect it originated as a "sale catalogue" name of 

 Staudinger's, by whom, we believe, the specimens were originally sent 

 out. They are rather larger than average British examples, of a 

 bright violet tint, with a fine black outer-marginal line, the 

 fringes grey internally, white externally, the underside pale grey, 



