1885.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 81 



ENTOMOLOGIA HONGKONGENSIS — REPORT ON THE LEPIDOPTERA OF 

 HONGKONG. 



BY F. WARRINGTON EASTLAKE. 



The province of Kwangtung, to which the island of Hongkong 

 properly belongs, has long been celebrated throughout the Chinese 

 Empire for the beauty and great variety of the insects to be found 

 within its borders. The soil is, in most parts, exceptionally rich, 

 and teems with an ever-busy world of animal life. But, great as 

 is the fecundity of the larger part of the province, there are, here 

 and there, sand} 7 , arid wastes, which even the untiring labor of 

 the native agriculturists fails to make yield more than the scan- 

 tiest of crops. This is especially the case along the southeastern 

 littoral. Here the formation is igneous and the rocks granitic, as 

 a rule, with occasional intrusive traps and seams of trachytic 

 porphyry. The island of Hongkong, in particular, consists 

 mainly of hornblendic granite, of which silica, alumina, and 

 various oxides of iron are the principal components. The rock 

 is, at the same time, composed throughout of materials unusually 

 susceptible to climatic influences, particularly to the action of 

 heavy rains. The decomposed and disintegrated rock makes an 

 admirably fertile soil, especially in the ravines, valleys, and low- 

 lands ; the hills, however, being constantly exposed to all sorts of 

 weather, are signally barren and verdureless. Tufts of " arrow- 

 grass," long, trailing mosses, coarse ferns and hardy flowering- 

 plants are sparsely scattered over the mountain-slopes; pines, firs, 

 and a few other resinous trees cover the less-exposed portions, 

 but the heavy rains annually sweep down quantities of this local 

 vegetation into the sea. In such places insect life is rare. And 

 yet the entomology of Hongkong, although so small an island, is 

 unusually rich and worthy of attention. This is chiefly due to 

 the fact that the island is connected with the famous Lo-fan Shan 

 — a small range of mountains some fifteen miles north of the 

 thriving market-town of Shek Lung (" Stone Dragon,") and about 

 seventy miles east of Canton. Starting from the westernmost 

 spur of this range, a limestone formation runs to the north and 

 northwest. Here the flora is both beautiful and luxuriant ; 

 flowering plants laden with tempting pollen cover the hillsides, 



