On unrecorded varieties of Coptengis Sheppardi, Crotch and of C. Pascoii, Crotch

There are in the Leyden Museum eleven specimens of a Coptengis which in all respects agrees with C. sheppardi except that the thorax and elytra are wholly unspotted, one might have thought that these, which are all from Morotai (Bernstein), would prove to be a distinct species; and I believe in fact it are similar specimens which have been so described by Crotch , as C. wallacii, but bis collection is not now with me, and I cannot speak with certainty of this. That these are only varieties is confirmed by the fact that I have C. sheppardi . , in which the two hinder spots are wanting and that I find it variable as regards the thoracic spots. But what is more remarkable is that from the same collection (Morotai, Bernstein) are four specimens which I cannot separate from C. pascoii Crotch except by the unspotted elytra. And on studying these two species, I cannot find any structural difierence whatever, that is constant, the difference between them being a colour one of the legs alone, that of the body and elytra being evidently variable and local. It is, however, to be observed that the colour of the legs is so very constant in Erotylidae, that I am far from asserting that these two forms are not specifically distinct, on the contrary I think them to be so.