X INTRODUCTION. 



As Mr. Hevvitson mentioned twelve species of Rhopalocera in the Atkinson collection as 

 being hitherto unknown, there yet remain for description four species, to be dealt with by 

 the British Museum authorities, into whose hands Mr. Hewitson's unique collection has 

 passed. 



The first original descriptions by Mr. Atkinson were undertaken on the return of 

 Major Sladen's expedition from Yunan. His paper, which was communicated to the 

 Zoological Society by Dr. J. Anderson in 1871 *, described three new species of Diurnal 

 Lepidoptera from Western Yunan, collected by Dr. Anderson in 1868. These species 

 were JEmonn Icna, Zo])hoessa andersoni, and Flesioneiira liliana, all of them being 

 well figured. 



In 1873 Mr. Atkinson contributed two more papers to the same Society. One of 

 them f described and figured a new and beautiful species of Butterfly which had been sent 

 to him by Dr. Lidderdale from Bhutan, and which, in the belief that it would form a 

 new genus intermediate between Thais and the Chinese Sericimts, he named Bhufcmitis 

 lidderclalii. He was not aware, nor was I till Mr. Moore called my attention to the fact, 

 that a closely allied species had already been described by Blanchard in the ' Comptes 

 Rendus,' 1871, p. 809, and constituted the type of his new genus Armandia, named after 

 the Abbe Armand David, who had sent it home from Moupin. Blanchard's genus will take 

 precedence of Bhutanitis, owing to the delay which occurred in Mr. Atkinson's publication 

 of his description oi Armandia lidderdalii, which seems to have come into his hands in May 

 1868. A figure of the Abbe David's species, Armandia thaitina, will be found in the second 

 liATaison of the ' Etudes d'Entomologie,' printed in November 1876 (but apparently not 

 published), at M. Charles Oberthiir's press at Rennes. A comparison of the figures leaves no 

 room to doubt the close affinity of the two species, which are both from high elevations, 

 and will probably be found to meet each other on the slopes of the mountains which divide 

 Assam from Western China. It will be interesting to ascertain the range eastward of A. 

 lidderdalii, and to learn whether its larva feeds on the Aristolockia, which the Abbe J tells 

 us is the Ibod-plant both of Scricinus and Armandia thaitina, the two forms wliich, he 

 adds, replace Tliais in Europe. 



Mr. Atkinson's third paper §, contributed to the Zoological Society in the same year, 

 described and figured two new species of Butterflies from the Andaman Islands. These 

 were Papilio mayo, a fine species of the Polymnestor group, and Euplcea andamanensis. 

 He confined himself to bare descriptions, though no one was more competent than he was 

 to offer observations on the distribution of allied species, and the isolation of these two 



~ P. Z. S. 1S71, p. 215. + ' Journal de mon 3"= Voyage d'Esploration ' &c. Hachettc, 1875. 



t P. Z. S. 1873, p. 570. § p. z. S. 1S73, p. 736. 



