36 
Rottemburg were of that opinion, but the description is hardly full 
enough for identification, and neither Staudinger nor Kirby accept it. 
Lyccena adonis furnishes an illustration of the resuscitation of Rottem¬ 
burg, and also an instance where Kirby and Staudinger differ. Adonis 
is another Vienna Catalogue name. Hiibner figures the insect under 
this name, and later authors follow him in using it. Rottemburg, in 
1775, describes the insect under the name of bellargus , and says it occurs 
in the beginning of June, and is followed in his use of this name by 
Esper, Borkhausen and Staudinger. Rottemburg, however, places next 
before bellargus an insect which he names tlietis, and which he says 
occurs in August. His description of the male seems really to be a 
description of those forms of the female adonis in which there is a 
predominance of the male coloration, and of the female is that of a 
typical adonis. Kirby adopts this name for the species, but bellargus 
seems to have the juster claim as being an undoubted description of a 
typical male. Erebia blandina affords an illustration of the rejection by 
Staudinger of the Vienna Catalogue, and is another instance where he 
and Kirby differ. Fabricius described in 1787, under the name of 
blandina, an insect which he had seen in Schiffermiitier’s cabinet, under 
the name of medea. He did not adopt the Vienna Catalogue name 
because he had used that for another butterfly in 1775. Blandina was 
adopted by the French authors, and by Curtis, Stephens and Doubleday. 
The Vienna Catalogue name, medea, is used by Hiibner, Ochsenheimer, 
Freyer, Staudinger in his first edition, Doubleday in his Supplement, and 
Newman. Esper describes and figures the insect under the name of 
cethiops in 1777. Staudinger, considering that the Vienna Catalogue 
contains nothing that will suffice for identification, takes the next 
earliest name, cethiops. Kirby, probably considering that the testimony 
of Fabricius as to identity of the insect called medea in S.Y. is suffi¬ 
cient, adopts that name.* Lycoena agestis affords an illustration of the 
difficulties sometimes encountered in attempting to apjfiy the “ law of 
priority.” Agestis is a Vienna Catalogue name, but the insect so named 
had a light, fiery blue male. Hiibner figured the insect correctly under 
the same name, and was followed by the later authors. Lewin, followed 
by Haworth, called it idas, thinking it was identical with the insect so 
named by Linmeus, which was an error. Hufnagel in 1766 described 
under the name of medon an insect which has been supposed to be the 
same, but his description is unverifiable. Rottemburg, alluding to 
Hufnagers meclon, expresses doubt whether it is not a variety of an 
insect, which he afterwards describes under the name of alexis. It is, 
however, doubtful whether Rottemburg’s alexis is anything more than 
the female of bellargus, which he did not know, or did not recognise. 
Esper, under the name of medon, figures first an insect the size of icarus, 
dark brown with blue nervures, which is certainly not agestis, as we 
know it. In a later plate, however, as a variety of medon, he figures 
a typical $ agestis and Borkhausen adopts this name. Doubleday ac¬ 
cepted it in his Supplement of 1865, and Newman adopts it. Staudinger, 
however, rejects the name because it had been used for another insect by 
Clerck, in 1759, and claims priority for Bergstraesser, Rector of the 
evangelical Lutheran Latin school in Hainault, who correctly figured and 
described the insect in 1779, under the name of astrarche. Kirby, 
* In his Supplement of 1877 Kirby replaces medea by cethiops. 
