LAMPIDES BOETICUS. 337 



feeding up, but the fact of there being so many much larger ones occur- 

 ring at the same time, suggests that some were better placed as regards 

 more succulent and nutritious food, and we would call those specimens 

 above 30mm., ab. major, n. ab., and those below 25mm., ab. minor, n. ab. 

 As bearing on the fact, however, of the summer examples sometimes being 

 smaller than usual, especially when hurried in their feeding, Sheldon 

 observes that, in mid- July, 1905, L. boeticus was worn, but that, when he 

 returned to the same spot in mid-August, another brood appeared already 

 to be out, and of smaller size than those seen a month before. Graves 

 notes some very small specimens, taken in the Ezbekiah Gardens at Cairo, 

 on June 26th, 1907. On the other hand, Norris observes (Ent., xxvi., p. 

 89) that, at Bordighera, in early October, 1892, he captured some males 

 that were more thickly powdered with bright blue hairs than those taken 

 a week or so earlier at San Dalmazzo di Tenda, and that some of these 

 Bordighera specimens measured nearly li-ins. in expanse. Reverting 

 again to the Guernsey specimens of 1899 and 1904, Lowe notes (in litt.) 

 that "those bred by Baker were mostly of large size; among the 

 females bred and captured, there were two very distinct forms of the 

 female, the difference being in the colour of the blue which occupies 

 the central area of the forewings and base of hind wings ; in one (typical) 

 form, the blue is purplish, the colour of Cyaniris semiargus males ; 

 the blue of the other form is much lighter, brighter, and more metallic, 

 approaching the colour of Celastrina argiolus female, but identical 

 with the scarce ab. metallica of Polyommatus pheretes ; the distinction 

 is even more marked in bred than in captured specimens ; for some 

 reason the blue scales of this bright form appear more delicate and liable 

 to be lost, but even then the specimens do not approach the purple-blue of 

 the more usual female form." This is apparently our female ab. caerulea, 

 Niceville says (Butts. India, iii.,p. 204) that the Indian specimens measure 

 from -9 to 1*6 inches. He also notes (p. 206) that the species varies 

 but little except in size, " though curious aberrations or sports are not 

 infrequent," but he gives no details of any such. Trimen says also 

 (Sth. Afr. ButU., ii., p. 58) "that the South African imagines vary but 

 little except in size. The males differ slightly in depth of blue on the 

 upperside, and the females in the development and distinctness of the 

 discal and submarginal white lunules of the hindwing, while, on the 

 underside, in both sexes, the submarginal white stripe and the orange 

 lunule of the superior hind-marginal black spot of the hindwing 

 present some variation." He adds : " The specimen of danwetes, Fab. 

 (Syst. Ent,, p. 526, no. 350, 1775), which I examined in the 'Banksian 

 Collection ' in the British Museum, is not separable from baetica" whilst 

 he further notes that "examples, that he captured near Algiers in 1881, 

 are slightly darker than the South African specimens." Bethune- 

 Baker states that the Madeiran examples are not different from 

 the European ones. Mabille observes that the Congo examples are a 

 little darker than the European specimens, at the same time bluer and 

 distinctly more narrow- winged. Walker says (in litt.) that the 

 specimens taken in Eimeo Island, April 7th-8th, 1883, belong to a 

 small pale form ; whilst the specimens from New Caledonia and the 

 Banks and Torres Islands, do not differ from European examples, 

 except in being rather smaller and darker. Only three forms seem to 

 have been noted under separate names. These are : — 



a. ab. armeniensis, Gerh., "Berl. Ent. Zeits.," xxvi., pp. 125-6 (1882,). — Differs 



