Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 58. (Budapest 1966)

Kovács, L.: Data to the knowledge of Hungarian Macrolepidoptera. I

toward the south. The populations are rich in individuals, and we may expect the discovery of yet a number of sites. Beyond the border, numerous other localities follow one another toward the north, respectively the west. It follows from the close connections of the populations inhabiting the two sides of the state boundaries that the subspecific relegation of the northeast Hungarian populations should be examined together with that of the populations beyond the border. This is advantageous in certain respects, since there are some literature references available for these latter ones. I refer, first of all, to WARREN'S monography, who worked up a material originating from the environs of Kassa, and then to SLABY'S paper on the medusa problem of east Slovakia, discussing materials from a number of localities. In essentials, both authors drew the same conclusions, showing that ssp. brigobanna occurs everywhere in the area under discussion. This statement is corroborated also by the Slovakian medusa material preserved in the collection of the Museum. Furthermore, this very material testifies on the same alliance of the northeast Hungarian populations, since they agree in all essential features with the east Slovakian ones. Similarly for those over the border, our specimens are also characterized hy the feature that there occur a great number of specimens — besides those with nearly complete bands — showing a strongly reduced pattern (WARREN'S "f. slovakiana"). In this respect, WARREN'S and SLABY'S data need but smaller complementary points. Such, first of all, are their occurrence below 400 m a.s.l. (indeed, the latter case is more frequent) ; and the smaller size of our home specimens (though there are also larger exemplars, none of them attain the 51 mm alar expanse given by WARREN; being at most 45 mm between the apices and 47 mm at their greatest width). It is not without interest that the material available from the High Tatra differs from the east Hungarian one in its considerably smaFer size as well as the lighter tint of the spots, tending to a yellowish hue. However, theie are specimens with a reduced band also from the Tatra, even if the reduction is rot so extreme as in exemplars from lower altitudes. But to sum up. The northeast Hungarian medusa populations belong, together with the east Slovakian ones, to the subspecies brigobanna. The brigobanna group of the Carpathian Basin, similarly to the ssp. euphrasia FRÜHST, of the Balkan Peninsula, constitute a mixed group in which specimens displaying a reduced band, besides those with well developed exemplars characteristical for the subspecies, occur in great numbers, or even appear locally preponderant. Concerning Erebia medusa, the present occasion would seem to be appropriate to decide a dispute, with the aid of the Museum material, over its subspecies inhabiting the foregrounds of the Carpathians. According to WARREN, there occurs in Slovakia, besides ssp. brigobanna, also ssp. hippomedusa: indeed, he also published a figure of an exemplar of the subspecies collected on the Branyiszkó. SLABY contends that the figure was made of a brigobanna specimen with a strongly reduced pattern, hence the identification is erroneous. This latter author insists that no hippomedusa was found yet in Slovakia. We have to state that WARREN really had hippomedusa specimens labelled with Slovakian localities in his hand; these animals are still in our possession. They are 4 males, labelled ,,Branyiszkó". We have acquired them via the DAHLSTRÖM Collection, together with 2 further males from the Branyiszkó which are, however, true brigobanna specimens. There is nothing to indicate that WARREN had ever seen these latter ones. Unfortunately, the locality data of the DAHLSTRÖM collection cannot withstand critic. This was first perceived by A. SCHMIDT, who doubted the occurrence in Tran-