LYCAEXA ARION. 307 



•can nearly always be traced unless entirely merged in the dark border, 

 sometimes only the inner edges projecting beyond the border in the 

 forewing, sometimes the whole series standing out distinctly, whilst 

 on the hindwing the series, when the border is narrow, or almost 

 obsolete, is sometimes edged, either internally, or all round, with an 

 ill-defined ring of a cloudy whitish tint, which sometimes appears 

 internally on the forewing also. The dark border, again, may be 

 sharply denned or melt gradually into the ground-colour, and in width 

 varies from practical absence on the hindwing, and extreme obsolescence 

 on the forewing, to suffusion of practically the whole area of the 

 wings ; in this latter case the spots frequently show through the 

 suffusion as a darker black, much as do the normal spots on the black 

 varieties of the leopard or jaguar. Greatly as the ground-colour seems 

 to differ on the upperside in the intensity of its blue, there are really 

 few forms in which, when seen with a lens, there is any very 

 appreciable difference in the tint of the blue scales themselves, the 

 variation being brought about by the greater or less admixture of black 

 scales with the blue ones, amounting in extreme cases to an almost 

 complete suppression of the latter, which remain only as a scattered 

 powdering towards the base, though generally in considerable numbers 

 over the basal half, and always concentrated at the base itself. The 

 only notable exception is a form from the Amoor district in which the 

 ground-colour is a pale blue-grey, the scales in this case being of quite 

 a different colour.* A slight difference in tone may, however, often be 

 observed, and in var. nariina there is a distinct inclination towards the 

 colour of the Amoor specimens. On the underside the variation in 

 the ground-colour is not so great, the contrast between even the 

 lightest and darkest specimens being less than occurs in any of the 

 British Plebeiids, though darkish forms are common in the mountains. 

 The spotting of the underside is generally large and bold, though the 

 size of the spots differs considerably. The whole submedian series is 

 frequently present, the costal spot on the forewing appearing far more 

 commonly than in any other British species, though cases of obsoles- 

 cence may be found in this series even to complete extinction. Short, 

 however, of such cases, the loss of the eyespots on the forewing very 

 rarely advances further than to leave the five central spots of the series. 

 The first to disappear is, of course, the small costal spot, next, the 

 lower half of the double spot on the inner margin, and lastly the upper 

 half of the same spot ; we have, in fact, only come across one specimen 

 of further obsolescence (without complete absence of the series), and 

 this on the right wing only, in this case the two spots remaining are 

 the third and fifth from the costa. In the same specimen, from the 

 Brit. Mus. coll., the hindwings lack the costal and double inner- 

 marginal spot, but this is the only case (short of absence of the entire 

 series) in which we have observed the loss of any of the submedian 

 series, except that the innermarginal spot is sometimes single. On 

 the upperside, where, even on the forewing, the presence of the whole 

 series of 8 spots is exceptional, the disappearance of the costal spot 



* This would seem probably to be the case also with the ab. (jrisea, described 

 by Courvoisier [Mitt. Seine. Ent. Ver., xii., pt. 2, p. 294) as being light grey with a 

 very pale rosy reflection ; this must almost necessarily imply a colour-change in 

 the scales themselves [Gr.W.J . 



