RUMICIA PHLJEAS, 837 



unable to associate these forms with either place or season. Tails : 

 One point as regards form is the development of tails. No large pale 

 specimen has any development of tails, in the dark ones there is great 

 variation, but there seems to be a tendency for the tails to be better 

 developed in the small than in the large ones. Sexual differences : 

 Although unable in many cases to distinguish the sexes of the specimens, 

 yet it appears to be usually the case that the pointed-winged specimens 

 are $ s and the square ones $ s, a sexual dimorphism that is common 

 to the rest of this group, and very notable in its near ally Loweia 

 do rilis, to which also some (df?) speaimens approximate in having, 

 not the tail, but the anal angle somewhat produced. (3) Colour : 

 Apart from the greater or less abundance of black scales there is 

 a difference in the richness or paleness of the copper colour, as a 

 rule, the darker specimens having the richer colour. The greatest 

 variation in colour is in the amount of black scaling. This occurs 

 in two very distinct ways, viz., by greater extension of the black 

 areas, spots, hind margin, etc., and by the invasion of the copper area 

 by a suffusion of black scales. The former not unfrequently occurs 

 with hardly any of the latter, but suffusion of the copper is almost 

 always associated with some increase of the black areas. The evidence 

 of the specimens submitted is to the effect that both these features are the 

 result of heat in the earlier stages, that is, that they are entirely climatic, 

 and in no definite way geographical or racial. There are specimens 

 that might be ordinary English ones from France, Switzerland, Italy 

 and Spain, and all intensities of suffusion occur through ab. suffusa 

 to var. eleus. The Locarno examples are interesting. Specimens, 

 taken in 1902 immediately after a very cold spell, during which they 

 were no doubt in pupa, were ordinary typical specimens though 

 emerging in May ; in April, 1903, the specimens approached ab. suffusa, 

 though taken in April ; the w T eather was then cold, but had just 

 before (when the specimens were in pupa, doubtless) been fairly warm. 

 What causes some specimens to confine the darkness to increase of 

 spots, and others to add suffusion, is not at all elucidated. Those that 

 affect suffusion, often have the spots with a sort of halo around them, 

 that is not the deep black of the spots, nor yet suffusion of the copper. 

 Chapman's specimens, he says, reared in heat, are remarkable as having the 

 spots and margins much increased, so that the spots form a continuous 

 band, yet they are very well defined, and the copper in most of them 

 is bright, only one of the captured specimens is quite like them, one 

 from Bronchales (central Spain). The pupse of some of the specimens 

 reared by Chapman were kept very damp, others very dry, but there is 

 no difference in the resulting butterflies. Amongst Pickett's captured 

 English specimens are several that are quite the form suffusa, and one 

 or two approach, in some degree, Chapman's bred ones, showing that it 

 is climate and not our race of R. phlaeas that prevents eleus being a 

 common form with us. They also show that the want of suffusion in 

 these bred specimens has nothing to do with the type of the race, 

 though, whether it arises from some special cause in their treatment, 

 or is hereditary in the actual brood experimented with, cannot be 

 determined. Chapman does not deal with aberrations, so says 

 nothing about schmidtii, and forms named by Oberthiir and others, 

 but he refers to the Lapland form. This, he says, is large, pale, 

 tolerably typical above, except that the black spots of the hindwing 



