GENERIC NAMES OF BUTTERFLIES 247 



problems involved have been described in detail in the note on the name Agriades Hiibner and 

 can therefore here be recapitulated very simply as follows. 



Two well-known Plebejid Lycaenids occurring in the Alps of Central Europe are involved 

 in this case. Both of these were first described and named by Leonardus de Prunner in 1798 

 in his little work Lepidoplera pedemontana. To one of these he gave the name (: 75) Papilio 

 orbitulus, and to the other ( : 76) the name Papilio glandon. The name orbitnlus properly 

 applies to, and is now used for, the species to which in the application submitted to the 

 Commission I gave (1946, loc. cit. 2 : 486) the English vernacular name " The Green-underside 

 Alpine Blue " ; this species which throughout the XlXth century and in the opening years of 

 the XXth century was known by the later specific name Papilio pheretes Hiibner, occurs 

 locally in the Alps of Europe at high elevations extending, eastwards in similar stations as far 

 as Siberia. The name glandon properly applies to, and is now used for the species to which in 

 1946 (loc. cit. 2 : 486) I gave the English vernacular name " The Arctic Blue ". This species 

 which is confined either to high altitudes or to high latitudes, has a much wider distribution 

 than the " Green-underside Alpine Blue ", for in addition to occurring in manyof the mountain 

 regions occupied by that species, it (or very closely-allied species) occur at much lower levels 

 in the Far North of the Palaearctic Regions and extend to the circumpolar portion of the 

 Xearctic Region and thence in the west in the mountains as far south as California and 

 Colorado. The great confusion which for so long existed in regard to the interpretation 

 of these two nominal species of de Prunner's was due to the fact (a) that the name glandon was 

 either neglected or treated as a synonym of orbitulus and (b) that the name orbitulus was 

 incorrectly applied to the " Arctic Blue " (i.e. the true glandon) instead of being used for the 

 " Green-underside Alpine Blue ", to which it rightfully applies. 



In his studies of the Palaearctic Plebejids, Chapman reached the conclusion that a separate 

 genus was required for the accommodation of the " Arctic Blue " (that is, for the species then 

 still misidentified as orbitulus Prunner) ; this view was accepted by Tutt who thereupon 

 (in 1909) established the genus Latiorina. He would no doubt have applied the name Agri- 

 ades Hiibner, of which also the " Arctic Blue " was already the type-species, also under the 

 misapplied name orbitulus, if it had not been for the fact that he himself had made the mistake 

 of believing that a quite different species (Papilio coridon Poda, 1761) was the type-species. 

 It was not until 1926 (Ent. Pec. 38 : 105) that the erroneous nature of the long-established 

 interpretation of the two de Prunner species here under consideration was demonstrated by 

 Verity in detail. The publication of this paper at once brought to the front the question of 

 the species to be accepted as the type-species of Agriades (and its junior objective synonym 

 Latiorina) . Should that species be the false " orbitulus Prunner " of authors (that is, the 

 species to which the name Papilio glandon de Prunner properly applies) or should it be the 

 true orbitulus Prunner (that is the species habitually known by the specific name pheretes)! 

 This was an immediately practical question, because by this time specialists in this group were 

 agreed on taxonomic grounds that the " Arctic Blue " (the false orbitulus) and the " Green- 

 underside Alpine Blue " (the true obilulus) were referable to different genera, the former 

 being accepted as the type-species of Agriades Hiibner, the latter as the type-species of 

 Albulina Tutt. The view which I took was that, despite the normally applicable precept that 

 an author establishing a genus should be assumed to have correctly identified the species placed 

 in it by him, there were insuperable objections to the adoption of this procedure in the present 

 case, for, to have done so, would have been deliberately to fly in the face of the intention 

 clearly stated by Hiibner when establishing the genus Agriades, that author having then placed 

 the false " orbitulus " in Agriades and the true orbitulus (under the name pheretes) in the genus 

 Nomiades. Moreover, to have adopted the manifestly incorrect assumption that Hiibner had 

 correctly identified the foregoing species would have led to the most confusing name-changing 

 for it would have been necessary to transfer the name Agriades from the " Arctic Blue " to 

 the " Green-underside Blue " (at the same time sinking the name Albulina as a junior sub- 

 jective synonym of Agriades), and, there being no available synonym, to establish an entirely 

 new generic name for the " Arctic Blue ". Accordingly, when I dealt with this subject in 



