444 



PAPILIOXID.E. 



more important difference is that the secondaries are of the same colour as 

 the primaries, whereas in the type the secondaries are paler than the 

 primaries. The Japanese specimens, have dark yellow primaries, quite as 

 dark in fact as those of G. rhamni, var. maxima. Pryer says that acuminata 

 occurs in the mountains of Central Japan and on the plains of Yesso, and he 

 mentions capturing freshly emerged specimens of both maxima and acuminata 

 on Asama-Yama at the same time. I only met with acuminata in the 

 mountains of Japan. Herz records aspasia from Corea, and Alpheraky 

 (Kom. sur Lep. v. p. 100) mentions it from the Province of Kansou, and 

 remarks on the darker colour of the fore wings. 



Dr. Staudinger, who holds rhamni and aspasia to be distinct species, 

 considers acuminata, Felder, to be a variety of the former. This determination 

 is somewhat difficult to reconcile with Folder's description of acuminata. 

 Although I have retained aspasia here as a distinct species I am not at all 

 satisfied that it is entitled to rank as such. I have received hundreds of 

 specimens of both rhamni and aspasia from China and Japan, and in a series 

 of over eighty examples which I selected for my collection 1 find that there is 

 the same amount of colour variation in aspasia as in rhamni ; the angulation 

 of the wings is subject to the same kind of modification in both ; the size of 

 the orange discal spot is also variable. The only character by which I am 

 able to separate rhamni from aspasia is that the veins on the under surface 

 of secondaries are thicker in the former, but even this fails in specimens from 

 Loochoo, and does not serve to distinguish some examples of aspasia, var. 

 acuminata from rhamni, yur.farinosa. No definite conclusions can, however, 

 be aiTivcd at until Ave have a more complete knowledge of the earlier stages 

 of aspasia and its forms. 



In tlie North-western Himalayas G. zaneka, Moore*, replaces aspasia, 

 and is probably only a local race of that species ; it is distinguished by the 

 scalloped outer margin of secondaries. 



Aspasia appears to be a mountain insect, Avhilst rhamni occurs in tlie 

 valleys, occasionally wandering into tlie mountains. 



Gracscr mvA with llie lai-va of aspasia on Ithamnus damrica, but unfor- 

 tunately did not describe it. 



* Proc. Zool. Sue. Lonr]. 1805, j). 4!j;j, pi. xxxi. fig. 18. 



