The text below is grayed out because it is not intended to be read. It is a necessarily imperfect OCR of the original and is only used by a search engine.
104
Vol.13: no.2
FOR COLLECTORS SPECIALIZING IN EREBIA
The Alps of Europe have been so well explored for so many years that it is remarkable that new discoveries are still reported in such a popular group as butterflies. The latest addition to the European fauna is Erebia car-pathicola described in the current number of the Entomologist by A. Pope-scu-Gorj and A. Alexinschi. This is a species of moderate size of which 4 males were taken at an altitude of 1,660m- 1,700m on a mountain in the eastern Carpathians. On the upper surface there is a double eye-spot in a small fulvous field on the fore-wing but otherwise the wings are unmarked. The facies looks quite distinctive in the figure, and the male genitalia show an asociation with the pronoe group,
Those of your readers who are interested in this genus may have overlooked another new form described in 1953 by Descimon and de Lesse as E. serotina (Rev. franc. Lepid.).
In this case only two examples were taken, but in the neighbourhood of Cauterets in the French Pyrenees. The butterflies are rather below middle size, the usual submarginal spots on yellow macules are present on the upper surface, and the male genitalia show the characters of the epiphron group. The butterflies were taken at 800m-900m in September, a very late month for these insects when most collectors have gone home, and perhaps this will explain why the form has been overlooked for so long.
Another paper of great interest in this connection is that of Lorkovic {Biol. Inst. Zagreb 2:159; 1952) in which he points out the distinctive features between the two butterflies E. stirius Godt. and E. styx Frr. which have been confused for over 100 years. Whereas stirius has a wide distribution in the Eastern Alps, and has been recorded as far west as the Jura Mts., styx appears to be restricted to the Julian Alps, especially in the Trenta valley where both species fly together. These additions bring the known Erebia species of Europe including the Carpathians, but excluding the boreal species and the rather dubious forms of the tyndarus - cassioides complex, to a total of 37.
L. G. Hicgins, Gracious Pond Farm, Chobham, Woking, Surrey, ENGLAND