256 JOURNAL OF THE LEPIDOPTERISTS' SOCIETY

GENERAL NOTES

DATA CORRECTIONS ON LETHE APPALACHIA LEEUWI ( SA TYRIDAE ) Errors were found by Roderick R. Irwin to occur in our description of Lethe appalachia leeuwi (Gatrelle & Arbogast 1974, J. Lep. Soc. 28: 359-363). The errors he found relate to the incorrect copying by us of the labels on his specimens. We herein correct these errors and give the proper label data for the paratypes concerned, which are all in thc Illinois Natural History Survey collection except for the specimen collected by Norm Seaborg. The 1974 data were given as: "Cass County: ... 1 male and 1 female, 7 July 1971; 2 males, 9 July 1971 (leg. R. R. Irwin); 1 male (abdomen missing), 1 July 1973 (leg. M. G. Seaborg)." This should have read as follows (corrections in boldface): "Cass County: ... 1 male, 7 July 1971; 2 males, 6 July 1971 (leg. Irwin Leeuw); 1 female, 7 July 1973 (leg. R. R. Irwin); 1 male (abdomen missing), 1 July 1973 (leg. N. G. Seaborg). During our continuing study of North American Lethe we have noted the confu­ sion which exists among the species in the literature. Lethe eurydice (J ohannson) and leeuwi are best told apart superficially by the markings of the hind wings below ( ventral). We would like to point out, without going into detail, that the only "popular" book in which the ventral surface of either eurydice or appalachia leeuwi is figured is that by Klots (1951, A Field Guide to the Houghton Mifflin; Boston). In that book on plate 10, fig. 4 is the photograph of a specimen from Sharon, Conn.; the specimen is labeled as Lethe eurydice. It is in fact a specimen of appalachia leeuwi, and a very typical (Jue at that. This is pOinted out here to help stop some of the confusion that may arise between eurydice and appalachia leeuwi due to the recent description of the latter. It is well to mention here also that the type of leeuwi has been placed in the Allyn Museum of Entomology, Sarasota, Florida.

RONALD R. GATRELLE, 126 Wells Road, Goose Creek, South Carolina 29445. RICHARD T. ARBOGAST, 114 Monica Boulevard, Savannah, Georgia 31406.

NOTES ON THE RARE MEXICAN PIERID PRESTONIA CLARKI () Schaus (1920, Proc. U. S. Natl. Mus., 57; 109) described Prestonia clarki from a single Mexican female. This specimen in the National Museum of Natural History long has been the only one known, leading Brown (1929, Amer. Mus. Novitates, [368]; 13) to consider it a female form of argante (Fabricius), a conclusion he (Brown, 1933, Amer. Mus. Novitates, [653]: 5) later reversed. Since that time Prestonia has remained in the literature as a separate including just one rare species and something of an enigma in the Phoebis group. The male geni­ talia are diagnostic in assigning species to their proper genera, and the unique female type allowed no such placement. Dr. Tarsicio Escalante of Mexico, D. F., Mexico has accumulated perhaps the finest collection of Mexican ever assembled. Not surprisingly he had specimens of both sexes of P. clarki taken at Presa Mixtequilla, Tehuantepec, Oaxaca. He presented two pairs of these specimens to the Allyn Museum of Entomology, and they form the basis of the redescription which follows. VOLUME 29, NUMBER 4 257

Figs. 1-4. Prestonia clarki Schaus: 1-2, 6 , upper (1) and under (2) surfaces; MEXICO: OAXACA: Presa Mixtequilla, Tehuantepec (Allyn Museum photos 122774-3 & 4); 3-4, '1', upper (3) and under (4) surfaces; saIlle uala (Allyn Museum photos 122774-5 & 6).

Male (Figs. 1-2): Head, thorax and abdomen centrally black above, laterally olive-yellow and ventrally yellow-orange. Palpi bright yellow-orange, olivaceous at the tips. Antennae short (less than 1/3 length of forewing costa), brown above, olive-yellow below; tips yellow. Legs yellow, bright pink along outer margins. Upper surface of wings orange-yellow, slightly reddened toward forewing costa and strongly so in distal half of hindwing, unmarked except for gray marginal tri­ angles at ends of forewing veins and discal markings of the under side of the hind­ wing showing through weakly. Under surface of forewing pale orange, grading to yellow marginad, and unmarked except for some rusty scaling forming an indistinct subapical band, rust scaling at ends of apical veins and a narrow, faint pink marginal line. Hindwing below also pale orange lightly overscaled with rust, two white spots outlined with purplish­ brown near end of cell, a dis cal band of poorly defined purplish-brown spots from the middle of the costa to Cu,-2A and some purplish-brown spots at ends of veins from Rs through Cll,. The lengths of the forewings of the males at hand are 30.5 and 32.0 mm. Male genitalia as illustrated (Fig. 5), more closely resembling those of Rhabdo­ dryas and Aphrissa than those of Phoebis (see below for discussion). Female (Figs. 3-4) : Closely resembles the male, but the ground color of all wings and surfaces somewhat yellower and duller. The lengths of the forewings of the Presa Mixtequilla females are 32.0 and 33.0 mm. Superficially P. clarki most closely resembles Phoebis agarithe or argante above, but there the similarity ends. The under surface pattern is not that of Phoehis. 258 JOURNAL OF THE LEPIDOPTERISTS' SOCIETY

Fig. 5. Prestonia clarki Schaus: ~, genitalia (slide M-2596 [Lee D. Miller I ); MEXICO: OAXACA: Presa Mixtequilla, Tehuantepec.

Aphrissa has a more or less immaculate under surface, and the median line down both wings that is characteristic of Rhabdodryas is not shown in Prestonia. The male genitalia do not conform to the patterns shown in the three other genera, either. Examples of the genitalia of Phoebis, Aphrissa and Rhabdodryas are given by Brown (1929: figs. 8-10, 5-7 & 35-37, respectively). Comparison of these figures with the one given here for P. clarki will show the following: (1) the uncus is closest to that of Phoebis or Rhabdodryas; (2) the valvae, while reminiscent of Rhabdodryas with regard to the terminal projection, are actually structurally closer to those of Aphrissa; (3) the penis is closest to that of Rhabdodryas, but is not very dissimilar to that of Phoebis; (4) the saccus is long, as in both Aphrissa and Rhabdodryas, but is more robust than in either genus, thereby tending toward that of Phoebis. The intem1ediate condition of the genitalia in Prestonia suggests that either our concept of four genera is wrong or that Prestonia lies near the base of the Phoebis group. We are inclined to retain the four genera. In any event, none of the four genera can be equated with the Old World Catopsilia (see Brown, 1929: figs. 2-4 for the genitalia of this genus) which apparently is not even a rhodocerine. While it is intriguing that an annectant fonn should occur in southern and western Mexico, the situation is by no means unique: the strange papilionid Baronia brevicomis Godman and Salvin is from just this area. P. clarki was considered in a paper by Dra. Leonila Vazquez G. (1955, An. Inst. BioI., 26: 477-491). This paper was not known by either of us at the time of submission of the present paper; fortunately Dra. Vazquez's conclusions were sub­ stantially the same as ours, though she considered Prestonia to be a subgenus of Phoebis, rather than a separate genus.

LEE D. MILLER, Allyn Museum of Entomology, 3701 Bay Shore Road, Sarasota, Florida 33580. F. MARTIN BROW/\" 6715 S. Marksheffel Road, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80911.