Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 59. (Budapest 1967)

Kovács, L.: Data to the knowledge of Hungarian Macrolepidoptera II. Comparative population studies on three arctiid species by the aid of light traps

D. Underside of wings. The basic colour is like above, but smooth, without any irroration. It may occasionally happen in lighter specimens that the fore wing is centrally dark but the marginal areas and the hind wing light. The spots of the upperside also tend to appear, but they are hardly discernible on exemplars with a dark underside, whereas they are rather conspicuous on the light ones. It is a peculiar case, when the underside of the wing is a smooth black and the fringe creamy, that the underside of the cilia is generally concolorous with the wing, or but slightly lighter. Below the apex, the veins are occasionally black, usually, however, they are only moderately darker than the basic colour. The richness of forms of parasita is not dependent solely on the great variety of the colour and pattern features, but mainly on the countless possibilities of combinations of the different elements. It would be wellnigh impossible to enumerate every combination; whatever is important was submitted in details above. Taxonomical problems. No constant difference as to colour and pattern had been found between the populations in Hungary. As far as ascertained up to now, the group of the hilly and mountainous regions differs merely in size from the one beyond the Tisza ; its alar expanse is bigger on the average and its fore wing slightly wider. This slight difference may be the result of the effect of the dissimilar ecological conditions. In my opinion, however, the two groups differ not only with respect to the effects of the ecological conditions, but also genetically. This notion pivots on the peculiar character of the difference in the period of flight. The populations beyond the Tisza live uniformly in one of the warmest regions of the country, near the 11°C annual isotherm. One should therefore justifiably raise the question why they fly later than the other group whose populations largely inhabit colder areas, between the 8—10°C isotherms. If their time of flight were unilaterally regulated by the given temperature conditions, then flight would start, concurrently within both groups, in the south and advance gradually toward the north, as is regularly observable in the case of other lepidopterous species. Once this is clear, one can hardly doubt that the different phenological character, contrary to the usual traits, of the two groups has a deeper lying cause, reflecting hereditary features. One of the implications of the above discussion is that in the study of territorially isolated populations it were insufficient to rest content with the examination of purely the external morphological characters ; one should include the investigation of the manifestations of their life. And in the last analysis, the expansion of such researches will also favourably affect the advance of taxonomical studies. 2. Chelis maculosa GERN. Since the elevation to a specific rank of the earlier ssp. mannerheimi HUP., the range of maculosa in the strict sense has not yet been delineated. However, this has no bearing on the followings, since our home populations indubitably belong to maculosa GERN., indeed, to its nominate form, according to the generally accepted view. The problems of the maculosa populations in Hungary have also been clarified by the aid of the light traps. Not only a great number of new localities have been