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

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

sylvania of Melilaea arduinna ESP., seconded, as is apparent from his correspondance, by CzEKELius, well conversant with conditions in Transylvania. It was definitely shown only recently that DAHLSTRÖM'S material abounds in similar, incorrect data, being thus faunisticallv valueless (cf. the introduction to my faunal list, published in 1953, on the critical evaluation of our home data). WARREN, without doubt through no fault of his own, fell victim to erroneous labelling. SLABY is indubitably right in stating that ssp. hippomedusa does not occur in SLOVAKIA, corroborated also by the authentically labelled medusa material in our possession. Let us add that there is no hippomedusa specimen in the Hungarian material either, — our exemplars with a reduced pattern all belong to "f. slovakiana". There is a noteworthy moral inferable from also the above example. The locality data, preserved with solicitous care, of older collections should be thoroughly criticised and used for basic inferences only if they are beyond reproach. 2. Melanargia galathea L. ami a new subspecies from Hungary The Marbled White occurs almost in the entire area of the country, as well in the plains and hilly regions as in the higher Central Range. Its enormous range and high individual numbers had probably equally contributed to its neglect by the collectors; unmerited, due to the richness of forms. The copious material of the Museum shows that there live, within our borders, moderately black, strictly galathea populations, and also procida-hke ones, with a stronger black pattern. Obviously, a thorough examination would result in valuable zoogeographical and faunagenetical considerations. On the basis of the available material, it seems undisputable that the lighter, sensu stricto galathea populations occur mainly west of the Balaton, in the northern Central Range, and in the northeastern sections of the Great Plains. Even within this range, they are not quite uniform. Though the proportions of the black and white elements of the pattern as well as size within the same population might vary, the single populations arc in their totality lighter or darker, smaller or larger, than the average. The whitest collected specimens occur, e.g., in the west in Balatonrendes, and in the east in the marshy meadows of Bátorliget, while the smallest ones originate from Magyaróvár — not exceeding the size of our exemplars from Mainz, Germany — but populations of small alar expanse live also in the Mts. Bükk. Whereas galathea s.s. is characterized in Hungary by its great variety and the mosaic distribution of the forms, also another change of a gradually increasing character is encountered from the west to the east and from the south to the north, namely the intensity of the black design element indicating the transition into the procida-like forms. We have such specimens from the environs of the Lake Velence, the hilly regions of Buda and Gödöllő', or, further toward the east, from the southern slopes of the Mts. Bükk. The darker, procida-)Sk& forms become exclusive in the central and southern parts of the country; our materials in this respect derive from Kaposvár, the southern side of the Mts. Mecsek, and generally from the southern sections of the Comitat Baranya, as well as from Peszér and several adjoining localities between the Danube and the Tisza. In earlier times, the moderately blackish forms were generally summarized under the name procida, while the extremely black ones were further separated as ab. turcica. When the great variety, sometimes localized, of the procida-like form? have later been recognized, a number of subspecies were delimited within the group. In 191 ß, FRTJHSTROFER described also the Hungarian procida, together with Dalma-