107 



tains about 60 species, of which about half are European. They are found 

 almost exclusively in mountainous regions, and are rarely found on the plain, 

 except where the vegetation has an Alpine character. They do not occur on 

 the more northerly mountains of Europe, where they are replaced by the 

 species of CMonobas; nor in the mountains of the southern parts of Spain, 

 Italy, and the Mediterranean islands. Boisduval enumerates no less than 

 seventeen species occurring on the Alps, and three species from Lapland. 

 The extra-European species inhabit the mountains of Asia, North America, 

 Chili, and South Africa ; though, strange, to say, none are recorded from the 

 mountains of North Africa. Two species only occur in Britain, although 

 another, Ligea, was recorded as being taken by Sir Patrick Walker, in 

 the Isle of Arran, as long ago as 1804. Mr. Stainton, in 1857, gave as his 

 opinion in his " Manual " " that new species of British butterflies are more 

 likely to occur in this genus than in any other." so many parts of the Welsh, 

 Scottish, and Irish mountains having been unexplored. However it is in 

 the southern counties of England, and not in the northern parts of our 

 island, where new species have been turned up, and in the genus Polyommatus, 

 not Erebia. The species of Erebia constitute Duponchels' ninth and last 

 group, named, from their lofty habitations, Al/ricicules ; and may as that 

 author suggests, be divided into two groups, from the entire and denticulated 

 hind-wings, forming Stephen's divisions C and D of Ripparcliia, and Hubner's 

 sections of Epigea and Melampias. 



Sub-Genus EPIGEA. 

 Hubner. 



The denticulated hind-wings distinguishes the species of this sub-genus 

 from those of the next. 



EREBIA MEDEA. 

 Scotch Ringlet. 



Medea, W. V., Me'dea, a wicked sorceress who married Jason. 



Eabricius, in 1794, named this species Blandina, but it is the same as the 

 Medea of the Yienna Catalogue, published in 1776. Dr. Staudinger calls it 

 MMops, Esp., and states that Medea, W.Y. is another butterfly. If so it 

 will be best to adopt the name of Blandina, Eab., for JEt7iiojis is a bad name, 

 being neither the name of a historical personage, nor yet of a food-plant ; 

 besides it has been given to two or three different species of butterflies ; and 

 according to Jung, the Mhiops of Esper is identical with the Ligea of Lin- 

 nseus. The wings expand from an inch and three-quarters to a couple of 



