1943] 
Nearctic Forms of Lycceides 
97 
greenish-blue dusting from base in secondaries and very large 
golden-green praeterminal blotches. From Gold Lake and Mam- 
moth Lake, California. Figured by Comstock, 192 7 (Butt. 
Calif., PL 53, Fig. 21 , melissa female). 
3. A showy, rather light lilac blue form with a white under- 
side, well developed and sometimes quite separate orange lu- 
nules, and a florid female. From several districts in California 
(“Bouquet Cn,” “Owens Lake,” “Tehachapi”; also apparently 
“Arrowhead,” “Olancha,” “Lebec”). This race is the “ lotis ” 
of authors (Barnes and McDunnough, 1916, op. cit ., pi. 11, 
fig. 12, male; Comstock, 1927, op. cit ., pi. 53, fig. 23, 24, male, 
25, female; Stempffer, 1933, Bull. Soc. Ent. France 102:110). 
4. melissa annetta [Mead in litt. ] Edwards, 1882 (Papilio 
2:48-49; Holland, 1898, op. cit.: 266-267, pi. 32, fig. 13, male, 
14, female; et 1930, ibid. pi. 66, fig. 16, male). Sparse, weak 
or obsolescent markings on white ground of underside; pale 
greyish blue female. In 1943 I travelled to Utah with the ex- 
press object of obtaining this little known form and found it 
in fair numbers, though very local, on lupine among firs at 
9,000 ft. near Alta in the Wasatch Mts. A full account of its 
habits will be given later. The male armature is quite similar 
to that of the typical melissa which occurred at about 6,500 ft., 
some ten miles nearer to Salt Lake City (with intergrades espe- 
cially in females cropping up among the annetta population). 
In some of the annetta , however, there is a slight increase above 
the melissa average in the H of the otherwise typical melissa 
organ, and this, together with a scudderi lotis aspect of some of 
the specimens, tends to diminish the hiatus between melissa and 
the Wyoming form of scudderi. 
The production of such local forms with more or less fluid 
edges is characteristic of the other species too, but in one re- 
spect melissa seems to be unique among its American congeners, 
and, namely, in that it is completely replaced East of the Missis- 
sippi (from at least Southern N. Carolina to at least Ontario) 
by a remarkably constant form which might serve as an example 
of how a really good subspecies ought to behave. It is the best 
known Lycceides in America, but lacks a name. 
Lycaeides melissa subsp. samuelis nom. nov- 
( scudderi Edwards, Scudder, 1889, Butt. N. Engl. 3, pi. 6, 
fig. 6, male, pi. 34, fig. 29, male genit., non scudderi Edw.; 
