LYCiENIN^E. 327 



Lycaena is characteristic. These authors (Catalog, 3rd ed., pp. 77-90) 

 place no fewer than 110 Palsearctic species in the genus, i.e., practically 

 everything that certainly belongs to the main tribe of the "blues," usu- 

 ally termed Lycaenidi, but which should be rightly known as Plebeiidi, 

 to the Everidi, Cupididi, Scolitantidi, and the Lycaenidi (sens, rest.), for 

 it is very obvious that their Cyaniris (Celastrina) is tribally distinct, as 

 Lampiiles certainly is. It is true that the great mass of our " blues " 

 are closely allied, and belong to the tribe Plebeiidi, but the Lampididi, 

 Cyaniridi, Everidi, Cupididi, Scolitantidi, and Lycaenidi, at least, of 

 the Palasarctic " blues," have equal classificatory value. Most of these 

 will be treated in detail in due course. We need only note here that 

 the genitalia bear out very distinctly the divisions one is inclined to 

 make on more or less superficial grounds. 



The most crude and unsatisfactory comparatively recent attempt 

 at subdivision is, however, that of Meyrick (Handbook, etc., pp. 344-9), 

 who, on the basis of the imagines having hairy or smooth eyes, divides 

 the British Lycaenid and Chrysophanid species into two groups, called 

 genera, viz : 



Eyes glabrous — Chrysophanus argiades, C. minimus, C. semiargus, G. astrardie, 

 C. phlaeas, C. dispar. 



Eyes hairy— Lycaena boetica, L. argiolus, L. corydon, L. bellargus, L. aegon, 

 L. icarus, L. arion. 



One can hardly imagine anything more remarkable than this ; the 

 character does not even separate species belonging to different sub- 

 families, and this was the more astonishing as Sc adder had just 

 previously, in his Butts, of New England, given distinct clues as to the 

 lines of division. We have already, in the preceding volume, pp. 313-314, 

 dealt with the generic synonymy of the " blues," and we shall deal in 

 some detail with the genera represented by our British species, as 

 necessity arises. A thorough tribal and generic revision of the 

 Palrearctic and Nearctic species is, however, badly needed, but is 

 altogether outside the scope of this work. 



Some of the species belonging to the Celastrinidi and Lampididi, 

 and more markedly those belonging to certain subtropical tribes, are 

 to be found flying about shrubs and bushes, but those of the Everidi, 

 Plebeiidi, Lycaenidi (sens, rest.), -and other allied tribes may, on the 

 whole, be said to inhabit open ground, fields and meadows,- slopes, 

 and waste places, to be restricted almost entirely to low plants, 

 and not to affect tall shrubs, bushes, or trees. Tbe imagines, 

 with the exceptions noted, rest on the flowers and foliage of low 

 herbage, and, in the valleys of the Alps of Central Europe, are 

 sometimes to be found in the hot sun in immense numbers at 

 puddles and runnels of water that cross the narrow mountain-paths, 

 but it is almost always the males only that are so found. This 

 is not absolutely so, however, for, at damp places, near the Lac de 

 Gaubd, Chapman proved, by capture, that about one in twelve of the 

 examples of Polyommatus orbitulus so takeu were females. One of the 

 most remarkable assemblages of Lycsenids that we ever witnessed 

 was observed on August 8th, 1907, near Piora, on the shores of 

 Lake Ritom, between noon and 2 p.m. There was, indeed, a series 

 of assemblages, for, throughout the space of quite half-a-mile, 

 the little swarms were certainly not more than 20 to 25 yards apart, 

 so that there must have been approximately 40 of them. We 

 have often seen somewhat similar congregations in the Alpine valleys, 



