PIEEIS. 



453 



orientis, but he considers that it is probably the large summer form of P. napi. 

 In coming to this conclusion Dr. Stauclinger must have omitted to note that 

 Oberthiir distinctly says that his types of orientis were taken in May. I have 

 received specimens from Moupin and other parts of China which agree 

 exactly with crutw, Poujade, but so far as I am aware no form of P. napi 

 has been met with in any part of China. The spring form occurring in 

 Posiette Bay has been named duldnea by Butler ; Staudinger, who ignores 

 Butler's dtdcinea altogether, describes var. veris, a very similar form from 

 Askold, the locality from which Oberthiir's orientis was obtained. Veris 

 differs from dulcinea in being without black spots on primaries and in having 

 the under surface of secondaries greenish and the veins more strongly bordered ; 

 the apical patch in both forms is more like that of P. napi than of P. melete. 



In my opinion none of these varietal names for the spring brood are worth 

 retaining, as in every locality where it occurs the specimens of this brood 

 exhibit more or less variation in the character of the black markings. 



Graeser (Berl. ent. Zeit. 1888, p. 67) states that he met with young larvae, 

 which resemble those of P. dapUdice, feeding on a cruciferous plant growing 

 on an island in the Eiver Amur, Pryer, who bred the summer form, melete, 

 from ova deposited by a female of the spring form, gives Arahis hirsuta as the 

 larval food-plant. 



Mr. Elwes, in discussing P. melete (Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1888, p. 416), 

 seems to refer to the female sex only, as he compares his Sikkim specimens 

 with bryonice, which is a form of female P. napi, and with the figure of ajaka, 

 Moore, which also represents a female. He states that there appears to be 

 no brood in India agreeing with the summer form from Amurland and Japan, 

 and records the species from the Khasia hills in September, and also from 

 the interior of Sikkim. 



The following table will show the geographical distribution of the different 

 named forms of the two broods of P. melete : — 



Spring brood : 



aglaope, Motschulsky ; Japan. 

 megamera, Butler ; Japan. 

 dulcinea, Butler ; Posiette Bay. 

 orientis, Oberthiir ; Askold and Moupin. 

 veris, Staudinger; Amurland. 

 erutce, Poujade ; Moupin. 



