Boros István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 7. (Budapest 1956)

Kovács, L.: Some data concerning the subspecific distribution of Colias chrysotheme Esp. (Lepidoptera)

vance concerning the knowledge of the chrysotheme subspecies, even if important questions yet remained unsolved. I find it a development of great importance that Verity began the examination of the Central European forms. He had shown that there is, during the summer, in the populations around Mödling, in Lower Austria, a special and frequent chrysotheme form differring from the nominate form, but this he regarded as an individual aberration, and did not give it a name. In the followings, I wish to discuss the subspecific problems of the Central European populations of C. chrysotheme, based on the rich material of the Collection of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. At the same time, I wish to give a more exact characterization of the subspecies described uptonowand I will modify the grouping of Palearctic subspecies as tabulated by Verity. The nominate form of Colias chrysotheme Esp. This butterfly species had been described by J. Chr. E s p e r (7). The description has been published in the work of the above author, ,,Die Schmetterlinge in Abbildungen nach der Natur mit Beschreibungen", Part I, Volume 2, p. 89—90. Figure 3 of Plate LXV depicts the male, whilst the female is shown by figure 4. As Esper states it, the specimens serving for his description had been collected around Körmöcbánya („Kremnitz"), and he received them from a German collector, called G e r n i n g. With regard to the occurrence of C. chrysotheme in Körmöcbánya, this is the sole data even after the perusal of literature and material at my disposal, and the collecting locality of Körmöcbánya had been incorporated into the Fauna Regni Hungáriáé (4) also on the basis of E s p e r's citation. From my part and on the ground of our knowledge of the home breeding localities of chrysotheme, I think it improbable that this species should breed in this area but rather belive that the former owner of the Esper specimens had some connection with this city. The more essential part of the problem is, however, not the question of the exact collecting locality of E s p e r's specimens but whether they could safely be identified with one of the forms of the species. The study of the problem is rendered the more difficult by the fact that the description of Esper, as regards morphological characters, is rather reserved. According to the text of the description, the basic color of the wings of both sexes is a vivid lemon („frisches Zitronengelb"). In the males, the yellow basic color on the median part of the wings is covered by a rufous-yellowish spread. If the orange color was present really on the male only, Esper must have had a very rare female aberration differring from the usual Central European individuals, a form which I had not been able to find among many hundreds of Central European specimens. The colored figure is, however, in opposition with the.desription, since the orange suffusion is present also on the figure of the female. The female depicted, by the way, very much resembles our large summertime female specimens from the Eastern Transdanubium. Principally, the large yellow spots in the black margin — confluent almost into a band on the hind wings — are characteristical of the Central Hungarian females of the summer generation. The representation of the male was less successful but the clear yellow color of the underside of the wings is also a characteristical feature of the Central Hungarian summertime specimens. Whatever had therefore been the exact locality of the specimens of Esper,! have to take the standpoint that his description concerns the C. chrysotheme form to be collected in the eastern territories of the Transdanubium, a view concurrent with earlier notions. Accordingly, our specimens from the Eastern Transdanubium belong to the nominate form and this form has to be