| OCR Text |
Show 1886.] MR. H. J. ELWES ON THE GENUS PARNASSIUS. 23 P. phcebus, Prun. Lep. Ped. p. 69 (1798). Var. intermedius, Men. Enum. i. p. 72 (1855) ; Stgr. Stett. Ent. Zeit. 1881, p. 256. P. sedakovii, Men. 1. c. p. 71, pi. i. fig. 1. Var. corybas, Fisch. Ent. Russ. p. 11, pi. vi. figs. 1, 2 (1822). Var. smintheus, Doubl. Gen. Lep. pi. iv. (1847). P. sayi, W . H. Edw. Proc. Ent. Soc. Phil. ii. p. 78 (1863) ; Edw. Butt. N . A m . i. pi. vi. (1872). Var. behrii, W . H. Edw. Trans. A m . Ent. Soc ; Butt. N. Am. vi. fig. 3 (1870). Var. 5 . hermodur, H. Edw. Papilio, i. p. 4 (1881). If this species is considered in a narrow sense as a purely European insect, its range of distribution is somewhat limited ; but if the innumerable forms and varieties which occur in Asia and in the Rocky Mountains of North America-and which, as far as I am at present able to judge, have no constant structural characters differing from each other or from P. delius-are treated, as I think they should be, as forms of P. delius, then it is the most widely distributed species of the whole genus. For the present, however, I will only give what I have been able to discover with regard to its life-history in Europe, where it is confined to the higher Alps of Switzerland, Tyrol, and Styria. According to Nordmann, it is also found in the mountains of Adshara in the Caucasus; but as neither Lederer nor the Grand Duke Nicholas Romanoff include it in their lists, I can say nothing as to this habitat. The species seems to be found more locally in the Alps than P. apollo, but is in many places abundant. I have always found it commonest in localities between 4500 and 7500 feet elevation, where a mountain stream had spread out into wide channels and formed rapid shallow brooks, bordered by a luxuriant growth of Saxifraga aizoides, which, according to Zeller's, Anderegg's, and my own observations, is the food-plant of its larva. Zeller, in Stett. ent. Zeit. 1877, ]>• 279, describes the larva as being in every way extremely like that of P. apollo, but as having yellowish, not orange antennae ; the pupa also resembles that of P. apollo. It has been supposed that the larva and pupa of this species are able to exist under water, for a short time at least, and this, according to Zeller, must certainly be the case ; the plant on which the larva feeds is always close to the water, and the sudden rise of a mountain stream, which must often occur, would drown them if they were unable to endure the bath. I have seen, near Bergun, a freshly emerged male, the wings of which were not yet dry, sitting on a plant of Saxifraga aizoides within a few inches of the water, and I have never seen the female settle on any other plant, though the male will on dull days rest on grasses and flower-heads. Zeller says that he found the larva creeping over slimy wet ground without being in the least smeared or wetted ; and Herr Anderegg, who takes the insects abundantly in Wallis, has assured me that he never saw it on any other plant but Sax. aizoides. I visited a favourite haunt of this species with his son on July 1st, |
