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Show 46 MR. H. J. ELWES ON THE GENUS PARNASSIUS. [Jan. 19, inclination to come together. I watched the cage till 3 P.M., when the insects appeared as before, but the males much less active. On the following morning I found one of them dead, and after waiting for some hours to see if anything would happen, went out. When I returned I found the female had escaped, some one having probably opened the gauze from curiosity. Several eggs were lying loose at the bottom of the cage, but these were lost in travelling. From these experiments I can form no conclusion as to whether the copulation had been incomplete, owing to the male having previously mated with another female, or whether the duration of the act was insufficient; but the fact remains that eggs were laid by a female without a pouch, and that three days after emergence from the pupa, she remained healthy, though no pouch was formed. It seems to me that on account of the larger size of the pouch in this species it would be a better one for anatomical observation than that ofP. apollo; and I hope that any entomologist who can assist me in making further investigations by supplying me with larvse or pupae of this species will do so. As to whether the pouch is ever shed by this or other species of Parnassius, as asserted by some observers, 1 can only say that I never saw one without it, except specimens which from their extreme freshness I suppose to be unmated females, and of these I have numerous specimens belonging to 8 or 10 species. One fact seems hard to explain, and that is the copulation of specimens which, from their appearance, were evidently not freshly hatched, which I have noticed both in mnemosyne and in delius, but which always separated when caught. Is it the case that, contrary to the usual rule, the male only mates once and dies afterwards, whilst the female, after having laid, is still attractive to males which have not found a mate previously ? If Mr. Watson's observations on P. apollo are correct, and the pouch is formed by a secretion exuded from the male and not the female, this seems likely; connection of the pouch with the abdomen in all species of the mnemosyne group seems to be only at the hinder end, as at the forward end it is often quite separate from the body, and the edges more or less recurved. The variation of markings and size in this species is slight. Some specimens show a tendency to transition into P. stubbendorf by the partial disappearance of the discal black blotches, and some females are almost devoid of the milky white scales which cover the greater part of the wings, but unless the var. nubilosus, of which I have seen but few, is a constant variety, I know of none which are worthy of especial notice, though Honrath describes a female melanic aberration from Carinthia as melania. P. STUBBENDORFI. Parnassius stubbendorfi, Men. Desc. Ins. Lehm. p. 57, t. vi. fig. 2 (1848). P. mnemosyne, var. immaculata, Men. Bull, de la classed phys.- math. de l'Acad. vol. v. n. 17. |
