POLYOMMATUS ICARUS. 185 



typical brightly-coloured icarus, of the same form as persica, Butl.,and 

 quite European in facies, but with rather greyer (less white) undersides 

 and rather better indicated marginal lunules. There are also others from 

 the Watson coll. of later date. The types (5 $ s and 3 2 s) of persica 

 Butl., labelled " Candahar, October, 1880," are brightly coloured 

 icarus, $ s of rather small size, undersides pale, with ill-developed 

 (almost absent) marginal lunules on both wrings, with fair-sized black 

 spots, the rings barely lighter than the ground colour ; two of the 

 three 2 s are large, both well-scaled with blue beyond disc, with 

 orange lunules on upperside ; the underside pale fawn, the spotting as 

 in the $ s, but the marginal lunules with pale yellowish chevrons 

 indicated, the pale margins of the spots also more conspicuous. Over 

 the greater part of Afghanistan and Beloochistan this form of P. icarus 

 occurs, almost identical with yarkundensis (kashgharensis) on the 

 underside, both w 7 ith regard to its pale ground colour, small spots, 

 weak marginal lunules, pale yellowish instead of fulvous arches, on 

 the hind wing, absent on the fore wing, etc., but the J s differing from 

 the latter in that yarkundensis (kashgharensis) is especially tinged with 

 bright hylas-hlue, whilst the fugitiva forms are more typical lilac-blue 

 in colour, indeed, on the upperside are in some cases hardly, or not at 

 all, distinguishable from European examples. Similar specimens to 

 these occur aberrationally in Persia and Syria, where, however, the 

 usual form of the valleys and highlands is practically indistinguish- 

 able from the European type, except that the underside is of a rather 

 lighter or rather brighter ground-colour, the spotting being also almost 

 typical. The only specimens of a very large number of Persian 

 and Syrian examples in the British Museum coll. belonging aber- 

 rationally to this race are " $ , Askhabad," " $ , Tekke," " $ , 

 Syria (Muller) ; Mus. B. (Zeller coll.), " $ , Afka, Lebanon, vi. 1900 

 (Nicholl)," of which the three former are " pale blue," the last-named 

 " bright " blue on the upperside. These are placed among the " icarus 

 from Syria " in the British Museum coll. They agree in having pale 

 undersides, weak marginal lunules of pale grey colour, scarcely a trace 

 of yellowish -fulvous, small ocellated spots in which the wmite margin 

 is still distinguishable. The other J s of the Syrian and Persian 

 series have well-spotted undersides on a bright, but pale, ground colour, 

 with well-defined ocellated spots and orange lunules. This form, we sus- 

 pect, is the turanica of Riihl. De Niceville seems to have had a good grip 

 of the fugitiva form of P. icarus. He w r rites (Butts. India, hi., p. 74) : 

 "I possess a J named L. fugitiva, Butter, by Moore, taken at Quetta, 

 where it appears to be a common species, and occurs from early spring 

 to midsummer. I also possess others taken in October in the Hanna 

 Valley at 6500ft. elevation. In Sw 7 inhoe's collection is a considerable 

 series of $ s of this species from Quetta and one from Chaman. He 

 records it from ' Chaman, May ; Gw^al, May ; Sheerog, June ; Quetta, 

 March to May. Very common.' He records L. persica, Butl., from 

 'Quetta from April to June, and of very large size in August and 

 September, and from Kasian and the Lora Valley in June.' These 

 specimens of L. fugitiva appear to differ only from L. persica , Butl., in 

 having apparently longer cilia and a more prominent black anteciliary 

 line ; the markings in L. persica below are perhaps smaller, and the 

 ground colour paler, than in L. fugitiva. I think that the dry and bare 

 mountainous regions of Baluchistan and South Afghanistan possess a 



