Last summer (1951) I decided to visit Telluride, San
Miguel County, Colorado, in order to search for the unknown
female of what I had described as Lycaeides argyrognomon
sublivens in 1949 (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 101:
p. 513) on the strength of nine males in the Museum of
Comparative Zoology, Harvard, which had been taken in the
vicinity of Telluride half a century ago. L. sublivens
is an isolated southern representative (the only known one
south of northwestern Wyoming, southeast of Idaho, and east of
California) of the species (the holarctic argyrognomon
Bergstr.=idas auct.) to which anna Edw.,
scudderi Edw., aster Edw., and six other nearctic
subspecies belong. I bungled my family's vacation but got what
I wanted.
Owing to rains and floods, especially noticeable in
Kansas, most of the drive from New York State to Colorado was
entomologically uneventful. When reached at last, Telluride
turned out to be a damp, unfrequented, but very spectacular
cul-de-sac (which a prodigious rainbow straddied every evening)
at the end of two converging roads, one from Placerville, the
other from Dolores, both atrocious. There is one motel, the
optimistic and excellent Valley View Court where my wife and I
stayed, at 9,000 feet altitude, from the 3rd to the 29th of
July, walking up daily to at least 12,000 feet along various
more or less steep trails in search of sublivens. Once
or twice Mr. Homer Reid of Telluride took us up in his jeep.
Every morning the sky would be of an impeccable blue at 6 a.m.
when I set out. The first innocent cloudlet would scud across
at 7:30 a.m. Bigger fellows with darker bellies would start
tampering with the sun around 9 a.m., just as we emerged from
the shadow of the cliffs and trees onto good hunting grounds.
Everything would be cold and gloomy half an hour later. At
around 10 a.m. there would come the daily electric storm, in
several installments, accompanied by the most irritatingly
close lightning I have ever encountered anywhere in the
Rockies, not excepting Longs Peak, which is saying a good deal,
and followed by cloudy and rainy weather through the rest of
the day.
After 10 days of this, and despite diligent subsequent
exploration, only one sparse colony of sublivens was
found. On that one spot my wife found a freshly emerged male on
the 15th. Three days later I had the pleasure of discovering
the unusual-looking female. Between the 15th and the 28th, a
dozen hours of windy but passable collecting weather in all
(not counting the hours and hours uselessly spent in mist and
rain) yielded only 54 specimens, of which 16 were females. Had
I been younger and weighed less, I might have perhaps got
another 50, but hardly much more than that, and, possibly, the
higher ridges I vainly investigated between 12,000 and 14,000
feet at the end of July, in the
magdalena-snowi-centaureae zone, might have produced
sublivens later in the season.
The colony I found was restricted to one very steep slope
reaching from about 10,500 to a ridge at 11,000 feet and
towering over Tomboy Road between "Social Tunnel" and "Bullion
Mine." The slope was densely covered with a fine growth of
lupines in flower (Lupinus parviflorus Nuttall, which
did not occur elsewhere along the trail) and green gentians
(the tall turrets of which were assiduously patronized by the
Broad-Tailed Hummingbird and the White-Striped Hawkmoth). This
lupine, which in the mountains of Utah is the food-plant of an
alpine race of L. melissa (annetta Edw.), proved to be
also the host of L. sublivens. The larva pupates at its
base, and in dull weather a few specimens of both sexes of the
imago could be found settled on the lower leaves and stems, the
livid tone of the butterflies' undersides nicely matching the
tint of the plant.
The female of sublivens is of a curiously arctic
appearance, completely different from the richly pigmented,
regionally sympatric, locoweed- and alfalfa-feeding L.
melissa or from the melissa-Vike females of Wyoming
and Idaho argyrognomon (idas) races, and somewhat
resembling argyrognomon (idas) forms from northwestern
Canada and Alaska (see for instance in the above-mentioned
work, p. 501 and plate 8, fig. 112). It also recalls a certain
combination of characters that crops up in L. melissa
annetta.
Here is a brief description of L. sublivens female:
Upper-side of a rather peculiar, smooth, weak brown, with an
olivaceous cast in the living insect; more or less extensively
dusted with cinder-blue scales; triangulate greyish blue inner
cretules generally present in the hindwing and often
accompanied by some bluish or greyish bleaching in the radial
cells of the forewing; aurorae reduced: short and dullish in
the hindwing, blurred or absent in the forewing, tending to
disappear in both wings and almost completely absent in 3
specimens; lunulate pale greyish blue outer cretules very
distinct in both wings; underside similar to that of the male.
Deposited: 20 males and 10 females in the Cornell
University collection, and 18 males and 6 females in the Museum
of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.
Published in The Lepidopterists' News,
New Haven, Conn., Vol. 6, August 8, 1952, pp. 35-36.
In connection with "Blues," I wish to correct two or three
slips in Professor Alexander B. Klots' important and delightful
hook (A Field Guide to the Butterflies of North America,
East of the Great Plains, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1951).
On p. 166 there is a misprint: "Center (formerly Karner)"
should be, of course, "Karner (formerly Center)." Incidentally
I visit the place every time I happen to drive (as I do yearly
in early June) from lthaca to Boston and can report that,
despite local picnickers and the hideous garbage they leave,
the lupines and Lycaeides samuelis Nab. are still doing
as fine under those old gnarled pines along the railroad as
they did ninety years ago.
On p. 165, another, more unfortunate transposition occurs:
"When fawn colored, more vivid in tone" should refer not to
Lycaeides argyrognomon {idas\ but to L. melissa,
while "wings beneath, when fawn colored, duller in tone" should
refer not to L. melissa but to L. argyrognomon
{Idas] (see my "Nearctic Lycaeides," Bull. Mus. Comp.
Zool., vol. 101: p. 541:1949).
On pp. 162-164, the genus Brephidium (in company
with two others) is incorrectly placed between Hemiargus
and Lycaeides. I have shown in my paper on Neotropical
Plebejinae (Psyche, vol. 52: pp. 1-61; 1945) that
Hemiargus {sensu lato) and Lycaeides belong to
the same group (subfamily Plebejinae-- or supergenus
Plebejus; the rank does not matter but the relationship
does). Brepbidium, of course, stands on the very
outskirts of the family, in a highly specialized group,
immeasurably further removed from Hemiargus or
Lycaeides than, say, Lycaena. This is where my
subfamilies come in handy since at least they keep related
things in one bunch and eject intruders. Views may differ in
regard to the hierarchic element in the classification I adopt,
but no one has questioned so far the fact of the structural
relationship and phylogenetic circumstances I mean it to
reflect. The whole interest of Hemiargus is that it is
allied to Lycaeides etc., while bearing a striking
superficial resemblance to an African group with which it does
not have the slightest structural affinity. Systematics, I
think, should bring out such points and not keep them blurred
in the haze of tradition. I am perfectly willing to demote the
whole of my "subfamily" Plebejinae to a supergenus or genus
Plebejus (Plebejus ceraunus, isola, thomasi, idas, melissa,
aquilo, saepiolus, etc.) but only under the condition that
it include exactly the same species, in the same groupings
("subgenera" or numbered sections, as you will) and in the same
sequence of groups, without intrusions from groups assigned
structurally to other "subfamilies" (and then, of course,
lygda-mus, battoides, and piasus should be all in
Scolitantides or its equivalent). However, I still think
that the formality of generic nances for the groupings is a
better method than going by numbers, etc. Names are also easier
to handle in works on zoological distribution when it is
important to bring out the way a group is represented in
different regions of the world. Generally speaking, systematics
is not directly concerned with the convenience of collectors in
their dealings with small local faunas. It should attempt to
express structural affinities and divergences, suggest certain
phylogenetic lines, relate local developments to global ones--
and help lumpers to sort out properly the ingredients of their
lumps.
The Lepidopterists' News, Vol. 6, August 8, 1952,
p. 41
A visit to Wyoming by car in July-- August 1952 was
devoted to collecting in the following places:
Southeastern Wyoming: eastern Medicine Bow National
Forest, in the Snowy Range, up to approximately 10,500 ft. alt.
(using paved road 130 between Laramie and Saratoga); sagebrush
country, approximately 7,000 ft. alt., between Saratoga and
Encampment, east of paved highway 230; marshes at about the
same elevation between eastern Medicine Bow National Forest and
Northgate, northern Colorado, within 15 miles from the Wyoming
State Line, mainly south of the unpaved road 127; and W.
Medicine Bow National Forest, in the Sierra Madre, using the
abominable local road from Encampment to the Continental Divide
(approximately 9,500 ft. alt.).
Western Wyoming: sagebrush, approximately 6,500 ft. alt.
immediately east of Dubois along the (well-named) Wind River;
western Shoshone and Teton National Forests, following
admirable paved road 26, from Dubois towards Moran over
Togwotee Pass (9,500 ft. alt.); near Moran, on Buffalo River,
approximately 7,000 ft. alt.; traveling through the
construction hell of the city of Jackson, and bearing southeast
along paved 187 to The Rim (7,900 ft. alt.); and, finally,
spending most of August in collecting around the altogether
enchanting little town of Afton (on paved 89, along the Idaho
border), approximately 7,000 ft. alt., mainly in canyons east
of the town, and in various spots of Bridger National Forest,
Southwestern part, along trails up to 9,000 ft. alt.
Most of the material collected has gone to the Cornell
University Museum; the rest to the American Museum of Natural
History and the Museum of Comparative Zoology.
The best hunting grounds proved to be: the Sierra Madre at
about 8,000 ft. alt., where on some forest trails I found among
other things a curious form (? S. secreta dos Passos
& Grey) of Speyeria egleis Bchr flying in numbers
with S. atlantis hesperis Edw. and S.
hydaspepurpurascensti. Edw., a very eastern locality for
the latter; still better were the forests, meadows, and marshes
about Togwotee Pass in the third week of July, where the
generally early emergences of the season were exemplified by
great quantities of Erebia theona ethda Edw. and E.
callias callias Edw. already on the wing; very good, too,
were some of the canyons near Afton.
Here are a few notes on w^hat interested me most in the
field: Boloria, Colias, certain Blues, and migratory or
at least "mobile" species.
Of Boloria I got seven species, of the eight (or
possibly ten) that occur within the region. Plunging into the
forest south of route 130 on the western slopes of the Snowy
Range, I found B. selene tollandensis B & McD. not
uncommon on a small richly flowered marsh at about 8,000 ft.
alt.; also on marshes north of Northgate and on Togwotee Pass.
On July 8, I spent three hours collecting a dozen fresh
specimens of B. eunomia alticola B &: McD., both
sexes, on a tiny very wet marsh along the eastern lip of the
last lake before reaching Snowy Range Pass from the west,
possibly the same spot where Klots had taken it in 1935
(Journ. N. Y. Ent. Soc. 45: p. 326; 1937). I met with
the same form on a marsh near Peacock Lake, Longs Peak,
Colorado, in 1947. Forms of B. Mania Esp. (mostly near
ssp. helena Edw.) were abundant everywhere above 7,500
ft. alt. By the end of July B. freija Thunb. was in
tatters near Togwotee Pass (it had been on the wane in June,
1947, on marshes near Columbine Lodge, Estes Park; and on
He-back River, Tetons, in early July, 1949). Of the beautiful
B. frigga sagata B. & Benj. I took two шш (fresh but
frayed) near Togwotee Pass. Of B. toddi Holland ssp. I
took a very fresh ш in early July in the Snowy Range at 8,000
ft. alt. and a couple of days later, acting upon a hunch, I
visited a remarkably repulsive-looking willow-bog, full of
cowmerds and barbed wire, off route 127, and found there a
largish form of B. toddi very abundant-- in fact, I have
never seen. it as common anywhere in the west; unfortunately,
the specimens, of which I kept a score or so, were mostly
faded-- and very difficult to capture, their idea of sport
being to sail to and fro over the fairly tall sallows that
encompassed the many small circular areas (inhabited only by
Plebeius saepiolus Boisd. and Polites utahensis
Skin.) into which the bog \va.s divided by the shrubs.
Another species I had never seen to be so common was B.
kriembild Strecker which I found in all the willow-bogs
near Togwotee Pass.
In regard to Colias I could not discover what I
wanted-- which was some geographical intergradation between
C. scudderi Reakirt, which I suggest should be
classified as C. palaeno scudderi (Reakirt) (common
everywhere in the Medicine Bow National Forest), and C.
pelidne skinneri Barnes (locally common near Togwotee Pass
and above Afton). I was struck, however, by the identical
ovipositing manners of C. scudderi and C. skinneri 99
which were common in the densest woods of their respective
habitats, laying on Vac-cinium. I found C. meadi
Edw. very common on Snowy Range Pass. It was also present at
timberline near Tog-\votee Pass and east of it, below
timberline, down to 8,000 ft. alt. in willow-bogs, where it was
accompanied by another usually "Hudsonian" species,
Lycaenasnowi Edw., the latter represented by undersized
individuals. (In early July, 1951, near Telluride, Colorado, I
found a colony of healthy Colias meadi and one of very
sluggish Pargus cen-taureae freija Warren in aspen
groves along a canyon at only 8,500 ft. alt.) On a slope near
Togw^otee Pass at timberline I had the pleasure of discovering
a strain of C. meadi with albinic 99. The species was
anything but common there, but of the dozen 99 or so
seen or caught, as many as three were albinic. Of these my wife
and I took two, hers a dull white similar to C. hecla
"pallida," mine slightly tinged with peach (the only other time
I saw a white C. meadi was at the base of Longs Peak,
1947, where the species was extremely abundant).
In 1949 and 1951, when collecting Lycaeides in the
Tetons, all over Jackson Hole, and in the Yellowstone, I had
found that to the north and east L. argyrognomon {idas)
longinusNa.b. turns into L. argyrognomon (Idas)
scudderi Edw. but I had not solved the problem of the L.
melissa strain so prominent in some colonies of L.
argyrognomon longinus (i.e. Black Tail Butte near Jackson).
I had conjectured that hybridization occurs or had occurred
with wandering low elevation L. melissa (the rather
richly marked "Artemisian" L. melissa-- probably in need
of some name) that follows alfalfa along roads as Plebeius
saepiolus does clover. In result of my 1952 quest the
situation appears as follows. The most northern point where
typical L. longinus occurs is the vicinity of Moran,
seldom below 7,000 ft. alt. and up to 11,000 at least. It
spreads south at those altitudes for more than a thousand miles
to the southern tip of Bridger National Forest but not much
further (I have not found it, for instance, around Kemmerer). I
have managed to find one L. melissa, a fresh c?, in
August, 1952, in a dry field near Afton, less than a mile from
the canyon into which both sexes of L. longinus
descended from the woods above. At eastern points of the
Bridger and Shoshone Forests, L. longinus stops
definitely at The Rim, west of Bondurant, and at Brooks Lake
(about 7,500 ft. alt.) some twenty miles west of Dubois. Very
small colonies (seldom more than half-a-dozen specimens were
taken in any one place) of L. melissa were found around
Dubois at 6,500 ft. alt. or so (agricultural areas and the hot
dry hills). A colony of typical (alpine) L. melissa
melissa as described by Edwards, was found just above
timberline in the Sierra Madre. The search for L.
melissa in various windy and barren localities in the
sagebrush zone in mid-July led to the finding of a rather
unexpected Blue. This was Plebeius (Icarida) sbasta
Edw., common in the parched plain at less than 7,000 ft. alt.
between Saratoga and Encampment flying on sandy ground with
Phyciodes mylitta barnesi Skinner, Satyrium
fuliginosa Edw., and Neominois ridingsi Edw. It was
also abundant all over the hot hills at 6,500 ft. alt. around
Dubois where nothing much else occurred. T have not yet been
able to compare my specimens with certain scries in the Museum
of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, but I suggest that this
low-altitude P. shasta is the true P. minnehaha
Scudder while the alpine form which I found in enormous numbers
above timberline in Estes Park (especially, on Twin Sisters)
and which collectors, following Holland's mislead, call
"minnehaha," is really an undescribed race.
As to migratory species observed in Wyoming, 1952, I
distinguish two groups: (1) latitudinal migrants-- moving
within their zones of habitat mainly in a west-east (North
America) or east-west (Europe) direction and capable of
surviving a Canadian Zone winter in this or that stage. Mobile,
individually wondering species of Plebeius and
Colias belong to this group as well as our four
erratically swarming Nympbalis species which hibernate
in the imagi-nal stage. In early August the trails in Bridger
National Forest were covered at every damp spot with millions
of N. californica Boisd. in tippling groups of four
hundred and more, and countless individuals were drifting in a
steady stream along every canyon. It was interesting to find a
few-specimens of the beautiful dark western form of N.
j'album Boisd. & Lee. among the N.
californica near Afton. (2) longitudinal migrants--
moving early in the season from subtropical homes to summer
breeding places in the Nearc-tic region but not hibernating
there in any stage. Vanessa cardui L. is a typical
example. Its movements in the New-World are considerably less
known than in the Old World (in eastern Europe, for instance,
according to my own observations, migratory flights from beyond
the Black Sea hit the south of the Crimea in April, and
females, bleached and tattered, reach the Leningrad region
early in June). In the first week of July, 1952, this species
(offspring mainly) was observed in colossal numbers above
timberline in the Snowy Range over which the first spring flock
had passed on May 28, according to an intelligent ranger. A few
specimens of Euptoieta daudia Cramer were in clover
fields around Afton, western Wyoming, in August. Of Leptotes
marina Reakirt, one ш was observed near Afton in August,
with Apodemia mormo Felder and "Hemiargus"
(Echinargus) isola Reakirt. Both A. mormo and E.
isola plant very isolated small summer colonies on hot
hillsides. The H. isola specimens, which I took also in
Medicine Bow National Forest, are all tiny ones, an obvious
result of seasonal environment, not subspeciation. H.
isola (incidentally, this is not a Latin adjective, but a
fancy name-- an Italian noun originally-- and cannot be turned
into "isolus" to comply with the gender of the generic
name, as done by some writers) belongs to a neotropical group
(my Echinargus) with two other species: E.
martha Dognin, from the Andes, and a new species, described
by me but not named, from Trinidad and Venezuela (see
Psyche, 52: 3-4). Other representatives of neotropical
groups (Graphium marcellus Cramer, "Strymon"
melinus Hubner, Pyrgus communis Grote,
Epar-gyreus clarus Cramer-- to name the most obvious
ones) have established themselves in the Nearctic more securely
than H. isola. Among the migratory Pierids, the
following were observed: single specimens of Nathalis
iole Boisd. all over Wyoming; one worn ш of Pboebis
eubule L. in the Sierra Madre (Battle Lake), July 9; one
worn ш of Eurema mexicana Boisd., between Cheyenne and
Laramie (and a worn + near Ogallala, Neb.), first week of July.
The Lepidopterists' News,
Vol. 7, July 26, 1953, pp. 49-52.
AUDUBON'S BUTTERFLIES, MOTHS AND OTHER STUDIES
Compiled and edited by Alice Ford
Anyone knowing as little about butterflies as I do about
birds may find Audubon's lepidoptera as attractive as his
bright, active, theatrical birds are to me. Whatever those
birds do, I am with them, heartily sharing, for instance, the
openbilled wonder of "Green Heron" at the fantastic situation
and much too bright colors of "Luna Moth" in a famous picture
of the "Birds" folio. At present, however, I am concerned only
with Audubon's sketchbook ("a fifteen-page pioneer art
rarity" belonging to Mrs. Kirby Chambers of New Castle,
Kentucky) from which Miss Ford has published drawings of
butterflies and other insects in a handsome volume padded with
additional pictorial odds and ends and an account of Audubon's
life. The sketches were made in the 1820s. Most of the
lepidoptera which they burlesque came from Europe (Southern
France, I suggest). Their scientific names, supplied by Mr.
Austin H. Clark, are meticulously correct-- except in the case
of one butterfly, p. 20, top, which is not a Hamaeris
but a distorted Zerynthia. Their English equivalents,
however, reveal some sad editorial blundering: "Cabbage," p.
23, and "Miller," p. 91, should be "Bath White" and "Witch,"
respectively; and the two moths on p. 64 are emphatically not
"Flesh Flies." In an utterly helpless account of the history of
entomological illustration, Miss Ford calls Audubon's era
"scientifi-cally unsophisticated." The unsophistication is all
her own. She might have looked up John Abbot's prodigious
representations of North American lepidoptera, 1797, or the
splendid plates of eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century
German lepidopterists, or the rich butterflies that enliven the
flowers and fruit of the old Dutch Masters. She might have
traveled back some thirty-three centuries to the times of
Tuthmosis IV or Amenophis III and, instead of the obvious
scarab, found there frescoes with a marvelous Egyptian
butterfly (subtly combining the pattern of our Painted Lady and
the body of an African ally of the Monarch). I cannot speak
with any authority about the beetles and grasshoppers in the
Sketchbook, but the butterflies are certainly inept. The
exaggerated crenulation of hindwing edges, due to a naive
artist's doing his best to render the dry, rumpled margins of
carelessly spread specimens, is typical of the poorest
entomological figures of earlier centuries and to these figures
Audubon's sketches are curiously close. Query: Can anyone draw
something he knows nothing about? Does there not exist a high
ridge where the mountainside of "scientific" knowledge joins
the opposite slope of "artistic" imagination? If so, Audubon,
the butterfly artist, is at sea level on one side and climbing
the wrong foothill on the other.
The New York Times Book Review,
December 28, 1952.
Field Guide to the Butterflies of Britain and
Europe
In my early boyhood, almost sixty-five years ago, I would
quiver with helpless rage when Hofmann in his then famous
Die Gross-Schmetterlinge Europas failed to figure the
rarity he described in the text. No such frustration awaits the
young reader of the marvelous guide to the Palaearctic
butterflies west of the Russian frontier now produced by-Lionel
C. Higgins, author of important papers on Lep-idoptera, and
Norman D. Riley, keeper of insects at the British Museum. The
exclusion of Russia is (alas) a practical necessity.
Non-utilitarian science does not thrive in that sad and cagey
country; the mild foreign gentleman eager to collect in the
steppes will soon catch his net in a tangle of barbed wire, and
to work out the distribution of Evers-mann's Orange Tip or the
Edda Ringlet would have proved much harder than mapping the
moon. The little maps that the Field Guide does supply for the
fauna it covers seem seldom to err. I note that the range of
the Twin-spot Fritillary and that of the Idas Blue are
incorrectly marked, and I think Nogell's Hairstreak, which
reaches Romania from the east, should have been included. Among
minor shortcomings is the somewhat curt way in which British
butterflies are treated (surely the Norfolk race of the
Swallowtail, which is so different from the Swedish, should
have received more attention). I would say that alder, rather
than spruce, characterizes the habitat of Wolfens-berger's and
Thor's Fritillaries. I regret that the dreadful nickname
"Admiral" is used instead of the old "Admirable." The new
vernacular names are well invented-- and, paradoxically, will
be more attractive to the expert wishing to avoid taxonomic
controversy when indicating a species than to the youngster who
will lap up the Latin in a trice. The checklist of species
would have been considerably more appealing if the names of
authors had not been omitted (a deplorable practice of
commercial origin which impairs a number of recent zoological
and botanical manuals in America).
The choice of important subspecies among the thousands
described in the last hundred years is a somewhat subjective
matter and cannot be discussed here. In deciding whether to
regard a butterfly as a race of its closest ally or as a
separate species the Field Guide displays good judgment
in re-attaching Rebel's Blue to Alcon, and in tying up the
Bryony White with the Green-veined White: anyone who has
walked along a mountain brook in the Valais, the Tessin, and
elsewhere must have noticed the profusion and almost comic
muddle of varicolored intergrades between those two
Whites. In a few cases, however, the authors seem to have
succumbed to the blandishments of the chromosome count. For
better or worse our present notion of species in Lepidoptera is
based solely on the checkable structures of dead specimens, and
if Forster's Furry cannot be distinguished from the Furry Blue
except by its chromosome number, Forster's Furry must be
scrapped.
In many groups the Field Guide accepts the generic
splitting proposed by various specialists. The resulting orgy
of genera may bewilder the innocent reader and irritate the
conservative old lumper. A compromise might be reached by
demoting the genitalically allied genera to the rank of
subgenera within one large genus. Thus, for instance, a large
generic group, called, say, Scolitantides, would include
6 subgenera (pp. 262-271 of the Field Guide, from
Green-underside Blue to Chequered Blue) and a large generic
group, called, say, Plebejus, would include 15 subgenera
(pp. 271-311, Grass Jewel to Eros Blue); what matters, of
course, is not naming or numbering the groups but correctly
assorting the species so as to reflect relationships and
distinctions, and in that sense the Field Guide is
logical and scientific. On the other hand, I must disagree with
the misapplication of the term "f." (meaning "form"). It is
properly used to denote recurrent aberrations, clinal blends,
or seasonal aspects, but it has no taxonomic standing (and
available names for such forms should be quote-marked and
anonymous). This the authors know as well as I do, yet for some
reason they use "f." here and there as a catchall for
altitudinal races and minor subspecies. Particularly odd is
"Boloria graeca balcanica f. tendensis,"' which
is actually Boloria graeca tendensis Higgins, a lovely
and unexpected subspecies for the sake of which I once visited
Limone Piemonte where I found it at about 7000 ft. in the
company of its two congeners, the Shepherd's and the Mountain
Fritillaries. Incidentally, the drabbish figure hardly does
justice to the nacreous pallor of its underside.
These are all trivial flaws which melt away in the book's
aura of authority and honesty, conciseness and completeness,
but there is one fault which I find serious and which should be
corrected in later printings. The explanation facing every
plate should give the exact place and date of capture of every
painted or photographed specimen-- a principle to which the
latest butterfly books rigidly adhere. This our Field
Guide omits to do. In result the young reader will not only
be deprived of a vicarious thrill but will not know if the
specimen came from anywhere near the type locality, whilst the
old lepidopterist may at once perceive that the portrait does
not represent an individual of the typical race. Thus one
doubts that the bright female of the Northern Wall Brown (Pl.
49) comes from the North, and it is a pity that the Poplar
Admirable shown on Pl. 15 should belong to the brownish,
blurrily banded West European sub-species rather than to the
black Scandinavian type race with pure white markings.
The red-stained Corsican Swallowtail (front end-paper) is
surely a printer's freak, not the artist's fancy, and no doubt
will be repaired in due time. Many of Brian Har-greaves"
illustrations are excellent, some are a little crude, a few are
poor; all his butterflies, however, are recognizable, which
after all is the essential purpose. His treatment of wing shape
is sometimes wobbly, for instance in the case of the Heaths
(Pl. 47), and one notes a displeasing tendency to acuminate the
hind-wing margins of some Ringlets (Plates 37, 41, 44). In some
groups of closely allied butterflies Nature seems to have taken
capricious delight in varying from species to species the
design of the hind-wing underside, thinking up fantastic twists
and tints, but never sacrificing the basic generic idea to the
cunning disguise. Brian Hargreaves has not always followed this
interplay of thematic variations within the genus. For example,
in the Clossiana hind-wing undersides the compact jagged
rhythm of the Polar Fritillary's markings, which intensifies
and unifies the Freya scheme, is weakly rendered. The artist
has not understood the affinity with Frigga that dimly
transpires through the design of the Dusky-winged, nor has he
seen the garlands of pattern and the violet tones as connecting
the Arctic Fritillary with Titania, and the latter with Dia.
Otherwise, many such rarely figured butterflies as the Atlas
White, the Fatma Blue, and Chapman's Hairstreak, or such tricky
creatures as the enchanting Blues on Pl. 57 came out remarkably
well. The feat of assembling all those Spanish and African
beauties in one book is not the least glory of Higgins' and
Riley's unique and indispensable manual.
Times Educational Supplement,
London, October 23, 1970