CELASTRINA ARGIOLUS. 393 



Weir concludes that " it thus appears that the female of the spring- 

 emergence of argiolus in England resembles that of one of the varieties 

 of pseudargiolus that appears in the spring in America, whilst, in a 

 similar manner, the second generation female in England is exactly like 

 one of the varieties of the American species that also appears as a second 

 generation." Not only is there great difference in the width of the dark 

 marginal band of the $ s, but also in the depth and intensity of the tint 

 of blue in the centre, and at the base of the wings. Usually the females 

 are either of a lilacine or azure-blue tint resembling those of the male, or 

 they may be of a much brighter, more metallic, pale blue, a form which 

 we have already named ab. clara (Brit. Butts., p. 188), the two extreme 

 shades, indeed, being very similar to those found in £ Lampides boeticus. 

 In Britain, all these forms occur at the spring emergence, and as marked 

 British female colour forms are the only ones that have come directly 

 under our notice. Hills notes a female, taken in the spring of 1897, at 

 Folkestone, in which the ordinary violet-blue was replaced by a bright 

 metallic blue, very similar in hue to that of A. bellargus ( = clara). 

 Anderson observes that some of the females occurring in the Chichester 

 district are somewhat striking on account of the blue having a tinge of 

 chalkiness in the tint, whilst the black margin of the costa and the hind 

 marginal black band of theforewings are of considerable width (approach- 

 ing pallida). This tendency to whiteness is very marked in the North 

 American form, var. neglecta, as well as in some of the eastern forms. 

 Raynor says that several of the females taken at Hazeleigh have a series 

 of three white horizontal streaks, situated towards the apex of the fore- 

 wing ; generally they occur along the outer edge of the costa, so as not 

 to be easily seen, but in one specimen they are situated further down, well 

 within the broad black margin. This might be called ab. trilinea. Weir's 

 further remarks (Ent., xvii., p. 196) also bear on this phase of our subject, 

 and he says that, " in a form of the female of pseudargiolus, figured by 

 Edwards (Butts. Nth. America, 2nd ser., Lye. pi. ii., fig. 9), the blue gives 

 place on the upperside of the wings to a lovely silvery colour, somewhat 

 that of A. corydon, the black edging on the costa and hindmargin of like 

 the forewings very broad, and the discoidal spot much more marked 

 than in the blue form." . . . He adds that he took a summer 

 specimen at Brenchley, in Kent, coloured exactly in every respect like 

 the individual figured by Edwards. ..." Females of C. argiolus 

 received from St. Petersburg are exceedingly dark on the fore- and 

 hind wings on the upperside; the discoidal spot, absent in the American 

 form lucia, is well-defined in these specimens, the forewings have but 

 little blue, and the hindwings are merely shot with that colour ; they 

 most nearly resemble the var. cinerea, Edwards (Butts. Nth. America, 

 ii., Lye. pi. ii., fig 17). . . . An example taken at Vichy, in May, by 

 Kane, is almost identical with that figured by Edwards (op. cit., pi. ii., 

 fig. 4), as marginata, except that the fringes of the hindwings are, in the 

 European specimen, spotless, and in the American slightly spotted. . . . 

 Another taken at Hyeres, in March or early April, which should 

 have a narrow black border to agree with the North European spring- 

 form, has instead nearly as broad borders to the fore- and hindwings 

 as the Russian specimens above noted," and Weir adds that he would 

 " have deemed it a typical specimen of the summer emergence. An 

 individual closely resembling this was figured by Edwards (Butts. Nth. 

 Amer., ii.,Lyc. ii., fig. 21), as piasus." Weir concludes that all the forms 



