396 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



pl, ii., figs. 1, 2, 3, 4). Nor do our Palaearctic examples ever appear 

 to show the remarkable blackish suffusion of the ground colour of the 

 underside represented in these same figures (figs. 1, 2, 3, 4), both on the 

 margin of all the wings (giving rise to Edwards' ab. marginata) and the 

 discal area of the hindwing. Most of the other American forms are 

 clear dead white or grey, never with the bluish suffusion so common 

 in Europe, and perhaps better marked in Britain than elsewhere. 

 In India, the argiolus races have the ground colour of the underside 

 white, that of huegelii especially so, whilst the spots are, in this form, 

 comparatively small and inclined to obsolescence, 'the marginal 

 lunules, however, being usually very well-developed. Another of 

 the commonest forms of variation is the difference in the number 

 and size of the black spots on the underside of the wings. These 

 extend from a purely spotless underside to a highly-developed series of 

 black spots, or even into a series of short longitudinal streaks, as exhibited 

 by a specimen figured by Oberthur {Variation chez Lepidojrteres, pl. iii., 

 fig. 24). It is, of course, merely a matter of chance that Linne describes 

 a small (size of argus), sparsely- spotted form, "the underside of the 

 forewings with a row of five minute elongated black spots, of the hind- 

 wings with ten small scattered black ones," and not a more liberally 

 spotted one. Of this small and sparsely- spotted form Fuchs obtained 

 two near Lemberg, apparently the only ones he had ever seen, and he 

 immediately described the individuals at length, jumping to the con- 

 clusion that this form of spotting was characteristic of the second brood, 

 and renaming the Linnean type, parvipuncta, and we have the amusing 

 result of the type being renamed as an aestival form of itself." It 

 is a not uncommon form in Scandinavia, Strand reporting it from 

 Vallo, Larkollen, etc., and, in Hungary, it occurs at Budapest, Mehadia, 

 and probably everywhere among the second-brood, but some of the 

 second-brood examples are quite heavily marked. As the name has 

 been generally misused of recent years, it may be well to give a 

 summary of Fuchs' inordinately long account of the two summer 

 specimens he caught in 1879. This reads as follows : — 



C. argiolus is double-brooded with us, and the summer specimens ex- 

 hibit several differences from those emerging in the spring. A S captured 

 August 1st, and a ? August 21st, 1879, differed from the early brood as follows : 



(1) The fringes of the forewings are less distinctly splashed below. (2) The black 

 spots beneath are fewer and smaller. (3) The faint white margins to the underside 



* (1) Linne (see antea p. 387) gives a total of 5 minute dots on underside of 

 forewings, and 10 on hindwings, Fuchs gives 4 in transverse row and 1 between 

 4th clot and margin = 5 in the S , and 5 and 3 faint lunular spots = 8 on the 

 forewings of ? ; Linne gives a total of 10 on underside of hindwings, Fuchs gives 

 the same number as typical argiolus ( = 12, besides the discoidal lunule). Linne 

 calls the spots on the underside "minutis," so that it is difficult to know what 

 Fuchs means by saying that, in his parvipuncta, the spots are " fewer and smaller." 



(2) Linne says that the spots on the underside of argiolus are " nigris " and 

 " absque ocellis," yet Fuchs makes one of the important differences between 

 parvipuncta and the Linnean type, the fact that " the faint white margins to the 

 underside spots (including the discoidal) are absent." Of his other characters, 

 " the fringes of the forewings less distinctly splashed below," and " the metallic 

 greenish-blue iridescence at the base of the underside of the hindwings rather 

 fainter and restricted to a smaller area," one can only say that Linne does not 

 say that " the fringes of the forewings are at all splashed below, nor that there is 

 any iridescence at the base of the hindwings. One can only express the wish that 

 isolated collectors would look up the literature of their subject before naming 

 chance aberrations. 



