Wings: White; the veins thinly black, fringes blackish; forewing with 2 black cell-spots, distal margin in male from the apex to about middle, in female further down and also more broadly, transparent-grey; hindwing dusted with black from the abdominal margin to the cell and at the apex of the cell, more densely in female than in male. Antenna and legs: Black, likewise the abdomen, the last being covered with whitish hairs in the male, while in the female it is nearly naked, glossy, bearing a whitish bladder-like pouch which occupies nearly two -thirds of the underside. Varies generally little. A rare aberration in which the cell-spots of the forewing are connected by a black streak has received the name ab.
halteres Mosch., and as ab.
melaina Honr.a form has been introduced which is darkened by dense black dusting (occurring especially often in the female and which is found everywhere among the ordinary form, being particularly often met with in
Carinthia,
Carniola, in the neighborhood of Vienna, in Wallis (
Valais), Transylvania, and
Austrian Silesia. In Carinthia, the environs of
Friesach, at an elevation of from 630 to 750 m, there occurs a conspicuously small local form,
minor Reb. & Rog., in which the black spots of the forewing are reduced, the expanse being only 52 mm. In Bavaria and
Salzkammergut (
Berchtesgaden), at an altitude of about 1000 m (June—July), the species has developed into a constant melanotic form,
hartmanni Stgr., the males of which bear an additional grey costal spot in between the apical cell-spot and the widened and dull blackish transparent marginal band, having moreover the abdominal border of the hindwing broader and more densely dusted with black; the females of this form are developed in the same direction as ab.
melaina, but are usually less dark in tint, have a very broad transparent border to the forewing, sometimes a grey S-shaped shadowy transverse band which emanates from the costal spot above mentioned in the male, and possess on the hindwing a more intensely coloured band-like marking behind the cell, extending from the abdominal border forward, and 1 or 2 costal spots. —
athene Stich, is the form inhabiting Greece (
Chelmos, Olenos); it bears a row of 4 or 5 whitish spots in the moderately broad, posteriorly sharply tapering transparent border of the forewing, otherwise agreeing rather well with ordinary
mnemosyne in being somewhat more strongly marked, therefore standing midway between the former and the following form. —
nubilosus Christ. (10 f) is the name of the race from Northern Persia and the Caucasus; the white spots in the widened marginal border are more distinctly developed, forming usually a submarginal band consisting of 7 or 8 wedge-shaped or luniform spots; the black markings are intensified and extended, and in the male there appears on the forewing a grey abbreviated band between the apical cell -spot and the transparent border, the forewing bearing further a grey spot at the hind margin and the hindwing bearing an extended dusting of black beyond the cell, forming a kind of band. An enlarged edition of this form from Central Asia (
Kuldja,
Alai), with the black markings still more intensified and the transparent border more widened, is known as
gigantea Stgr. (10f): specimens of this race in which the ground-colour has assumed a slightly yellowish tint are called ab.
ochracea Aust. — The egg of the species is conical, whitish. Larva cylindrical, tapering at both ends, black, short-hairy, the body ornamented with orange spots; feeds in April and May on
Corydalis mnemosyne typ. on
C. halleri,
C. cava,
C. solida, concealed in day-time. Pupation in the ground in a loose cocoon; pupa thick, obtuse, hoary, luteous. ==Habits==