238 



BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



the forewings. Courvoisier speaks (Mitt. Schw. Ent. Ges., xi., p. 24) of 

 a "forma latefasciata," in the £ , in which the "Thecla-stripe" on the 

 underside is strikingly broad. The unusual development of orange in the 

 antemarginal band of the underside of the forewings, especially towards 

 the anal angle, is sometimes sufficient to merit distinction = ab. a urantia- 

 esocessa, n. ab. Strangely, the best marked examples of this form in 

 the British Museum collection are all labelled "England." In the 

 hindwings, the size of the orange ocellated spot,- and patch at the 

 anal angle, as well as the intensity of the orange tint, shows con- 

 siderable variation. The southern race, var. iberica, is comparatively 

 faintly marked on the underside, the characteristic markings being 

 more or less obsolete. Barrett notes that there is, in the " Webb 

 coll.," a $ having dashes of blue on the costal margin from the 

 middle nearly to the apex. We have a male, taken at Digne, August, 

 1906, with a small spot of the bright violet colour of the female, about 

 ^g- of an inch square, on the right forewing, towards the base, and not 

 far from the inner margin. The only hitherto described forms appear 

 to be as follows : — 



a. ab. bellus, Gerk, " Schmett.," etc., p. 4, pi. iv, fig. 2 (1853^; Stand., " Cat.," 

 2nd ed., p. 7 (1871); Kane, "Handbook," etc., p. 21 (1885) ; Ruhl, "Pal. Gross- 

 Schmett," pp.191, 739(1893); Carad., "Iris," viii., p. 33 (1895); Tutt, "Brit. 

 Butts.," p. 200 (1896) ; Gebk, " Soc. Ent.," xii., p. 132 (1897) ; Staud., " Cat.," 

 3rd ed., p. 71 (1901); Lamb., " Tap. Belg.," p. 198 (1902). Quercus var., Hb., 

 " Beitr.," ii., p. 83, pi. iv., fig. 1 (1786-9); " Eur. Schmett," pi. cxxi, fig. 621 (1805). 

 Bella, Wheeler, "Butts. Switz," p. 47 (1903); South, "Butts. Brit, Isles," p. HI 

 (1906). — Hiibner has already figured this beautiful aberration; but it is scarce. 

 Lederer kindly sent me this form, and from his example my figure was made. 

 Htibner's figure is too highly coloured (Gerhard). 



Gerhard's original figure {Schmett., pi. iv., fig. 2) is a female, the 

 normal violet basal area of a bright blue ; a double orange spot at the 

 end of the discoidal cell, i.e., touching the external edge of the upper 

 portion of the brightly coloured basal area, with a third orange spot 

 rather lower and further out towards the margin. [In the copies of 

 Gerhard's work consulted (those of the Natural History Museum and 

 the Zoological Society of London), the orange-coloured spots have 

 unfortunately faded, the pigment having entirely changed, but, in 

 Bethune-Baker's copy, the spotting is still bright.] Hiibner's 

 figure (Eur, Schmett., fig. G21), too, has the three spots very dis- 

 tinctly marked, one at the end of the discal cell, and two rather outside 

 the lower. This is a most interesting form of the female, staving as it 

 does an atnvic connection between this species and those of several allied 

 Asiatic Bithynids, in which similar orange spots occur either, as in 

 this species, as an aberrational form, e.g., taxila, etc., or, as a perma- 

 nent feature of the female, e.g., icana, dbhertyi, pavo, ataxus, brillantina, 

 japonica, etc. The specimens of bellus in the British Museum collection, 

 although few in number, present characters that suggest the various 

 evolutionary stages between the least and most highly marked speci- 

 mens exhibiting the development of these orange spots — a series 

 extending through one, two, and three spots, and a further stage with 

 three spots and a marked stripe running parallel with the outer half 

 of the inner margin (see antea, p. 287). The form appears to occur 

 as an occasional aberration throughout the greater part of the range of 

 the species. It is certainly developed in Greece, Hungary, Dalmatia, 

 Germany, Switzerland, France, and England, and possibly elsewhere. 

 It is diagnosed by Staudinger (( a«.,8rded., p. 71) as " ab. $? , alisanteri- 



