116 ME. G. T. BETHUNE-BAKEE : A EEVISION OF THE 



The females of this species are subject to variation as to the colour of the blue ; I 

 have two with a very pale silvery-blue tinge, many are pale purplish, others are quite 

 dark blue, and some pale violet. 



All my Java specimens are of the brilliant or silvery-blue forms, but the other forms 

 appear to obtain indiscriminately in Nias, Sumatra, the Philippines, and Borneo. I 

 cannot trace any difference between this and Dr. Staudinger's palawanus; the colour of 

 the under surface is rather paler, but otherwise they are essentially the same. I have 

 two or three females entirely brown, with no blue area at all. The red basal area varies 

 considerably in the secondaries ; I have specimens in which there is quite a suffusion of 

 it, whilst in some it is almost absent, but I believe the streak on the costa of the 

 primaries is always present. This strongly marked species is widely distributed, it 

 having been taken in Moulmein, Burma (de Niceville has sent me two from Tenasserim 

 in his collection), Mergui, Penang (Herr Semper has sent me a pair from this island), 

 Malacca, Singapore, Sumatra, Nias (Semper), Java, Sambawa. (my specimens from this 

 island are of the ordinary form, Doherty says a local race occurs in the hills), Celebes 

 (where a beautiful local race has apparently been set up), Borneo, and the Philippines. 



I have no doubt whatever that Doherty's Flos ahamus is merely a pale form of this 

 species. The genitalia are specialised in every point, the tegumen with its extraordinary 

 beak-shaped hook and projection below this, the hooks recurved at their tips ; the 

 clasps small and evenly oblong ; the penis stout, curved, with a globose orifice, at the 

 tip of which is a strong thorn-like spur. 



Akhopala akca de Niceville. 

 Arhopala area de Niceville, Journ. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc. vol. vii. no. 3, p. 331. n. 8, pi. H. 

 fig. 15, ? (1892). 



Hah. Celebes. 



Expanse, $ , 49 mm. 



This may be the Celebes form of apidanus Cram. 



2 ■ The upperside is like the very pale silvery-blue form of Cramer's insect, but the 

 blue is more restricted. Below it is plain dark brown and whitish, all trace of red or 

 pink or lilac is quite gone, there being also no trace of the red costal streak in the 

 primaries nor of the basal streak in the secondaries ; in the primaries the markings are 

 the same, but greyish white takes the place of the lighter brown interspaces and the 

 submedian area, and the lilac scaling at the apex is replaced by light grey; the same 

 differences obtain in the secondaries, and the fringes are wholly tipped with white, 

 which gives the insect a very striking appearance. 



1 have before me the unique type from which de Niceville described the species, and 

 if all examples from Celebes agree with that specimen, it makes a very fine local race. 



