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Show 44 MR. H. J. ELWES ON THE GENUS PARNASSIUS. [Jan. 19, central ocellus usually with white pupil, and in the female sex a oblong patch at the anal angle. Near the outer margin is a series of five large bluish-grey ocelli, broadly edged with black on the outside. The fringe of the wings is white, broader and more distinct on the hind wings than on the fore, but never spotted; the antennas are shining black ; the thorax and abdomen in the male are black, thickly covered with short downy hairs on the thorax, and with longer paler ones on the abdomen, which extend over the base of the fore wing and the inner margin of the hind wings, as far as the anal angle. The abdomen of the female is black with a few pale hairs down the centre of the upper surface, and divided into eight segments by distinct rings of a greyish colour ; the terminal segment in the female is furnished with a tuft of short grey hairs, which, when the pouch becomes developed, turn up almost at right angles to the body. The pouch is a remarkably shaped one, different from that of any other species of Parnassius (see Plate III. fig. 5). P. MNEMOSYNE. Parnassius mnemosyne, Linn. S. N. x. p. 465. Var. nubilosus, Christoph, Hor. Ent. Ross. x. p. 19 (1873). This is the type of a large and widely distributed section of the genus. Some form of the group is found in almost every region where Parnassius occurs, and P. mnemosyne itself is of very wide distribution in Europe and Western Asia, but replaced in Eastern Asia and N.W. America by allied forms differing from it in minor characters, but preserving a very strong general resemblance in all important ones. It is found in the Pyrenees at Cauterets (Oberthiir), in thousands on meadows on the Spanish slopes near Gavarnie, at 6600 feet (Pierret fide Speyer), in the Neaj: ilitan and Sicilian mountains, in Auvergne (Sand), in many parts of the French, Swiss, Styrian, and Italian Alps, from about 2300 to 5000 feet; but apparently of very local distribution, as Meyer-Dur had never seen it himself, and Dr. Staudinger told me that he had been equally unfortunate, whilst I have taken it abundantly in three different places. In many parts of N.E. Prussia, in Bavaria, the Hartz, in many parts of Austria, it is more or less common, and often at quite low elevations. I have taken it at Modling, close to Vienna, on a low rocky hill among bushes. In the south of Russia, and in the north of Europe, it seems to be an insect of the steppes and forests rather than of the mountains. It occurs locally in Denmark, Scandinavia, Finland, and as far north as Archangel. In Asia Minor and the Caucasus, it is in many places abundant, and according to Lederer always at a considerable elevation up to 8000 feet, developing a smaller darker variety (nubilosus, Christoph) in Armenia and North Persia. In Asia it is found in the mountains of N. Persia, in various parts of Turkestan, and as far south as the Alai Mountains of Khokand, but not apparently in the Thian Shan or Altai, where it is replaced by P. clarius. |
