10 [June, 



ON THE aENUS AULOCERA, BUTLER. 

 BY n. J. ELWES, r.L.s. 



My attention having been called to Mr. Butler's remarks on this 

 genus in Eut. Mo. Mag., xxi, 245, as well as to his revision of it in 

 the 4th volume of the same journal, p. 121, I wish to clear up the 

 confusion he has brought into it, partly by hasty description based on 

 insufficient material, and partly by carelessness in reference to previous 

 authors. I may say, however, that Messrs. Marshall and De Niceville 

 have published, in the " Butterflies of India," such a complete and accu- 

 rate account of the genus, that I need say very little ; and as both of 

 these gentlemen know the species in life as well as in the cabinet, and 

 have caught and examined large numbers of specimens, I have little 

 doubt that their arrangement is correct, so far as our present know- 

 ledge extends. 



My own collection contains about 100 specimens, picked from a 

 much larger number which have passed through my hands, and I find, 

 after arranging it, that my conclusions are identical with those of 

 Messrs. Marshall and De Niceville. 



The question as to whether Aulocera is a good genus, is one which 

 cannot be settled without a careful examination of many species of 

 Sati/rus, for which I have not uow^ time ; but it appears to differ from 

 the majority of this group principally, if not entirely, in the form of 

 the antennae, and agrees in this respect with S. Circe, Fab. {Froser- 

 pina, Schiff.), which, by European entomologists, has not been con- 

 sidered worthy of separation from the other species of Satyrus. 



Blanchard first began the confusion by describing and figuring, 

 in Jacquemont's voyage, two good species as two sexes of one — A. 

 hrahminus. Both his figures seem to represent males, the lower one 

 being evidently Sivaha, Koll. This fact, however, was overlooked by 

 Messrs. Butler and Moore. Kollar, in 1848, which is the date on the 

 title page of vol. iv, pt. 2, of Hiigel's Eeise (not 1844 as quoted by 

 Butler and Moore), described and figured Sivaha, Padma, and Saras- 

 wati, all of which stand under these names. In 1857 Moore, in Cat. 

 Lep., E. I. C. Museum, describes the J* of Padma as Avatara, and 

 refers both of Blanchard' s figures to Sarasivati, which is most distinct 

 from either. 



In 1857, Butler describes (in Ent. Mo. Mag., iv) from a single 

 example of uncertain origin, A. Sci/Ua, which I fully agree with De 

 Niceville in believing to be a dwarfed specimen of the alpine form of 

 hrahminus, and in the same volume Lang describes more typical spe- 

 cimens of the same form as A. Weranr/. 



