230 [November, 



One word as to what are called "types." It appears to me the 

 word is used in a misleading sense. A certain school of entomologists 

 seem to consider that the first insect described of any species must of 

 necessity be the type, and look upon it as something sacred, not to be 

 touched or questioned, a golden image in the plain of Dura in fact, 

 for us all to bow down to ! 



It is only after the careful examination of a long series of any 

 given insect, that the dominant form can be ascertained ; this once 

 done, the true type becomes finally settled. No doubt many of the 

 existing so-called types of species at present slenderly represented in 

 our collections will, in the fulness of time, prove true types, and many 

 others, A. Scylla included, will be relegated to the limbo of pseudo- 

 types. 



Nothing can be more certain than, that when the life-histories of 

 the Himalayan butterflies come to be known, dire will be the havoc 

 amongst the newly-manufactured species. 



Callerehia Jiyhrida is another very bad species, and I was some- 

 what surprised that Messrs. Marshall and de Niceville should have 

 admitted its specific rank. It simply swarms here, and I have this 

 season made a careful examination of several hundred specimens to 

 settle the point of its distinctness. I found every possible gradation, 

 both in the shape of the wings (which is, I believe, the ground of 

 separation), the markings of the under-side, and the blindness or pu- 

 pillation of the ocelli beneath, between it and C. Annada, and find it 

 simply impossible to draw the line anywhere, unless one is prepared 

 to admit nhout Jiffy distinct species ! 0. hyhrida must, I fear, cease, 

 and stand under C. Annada, to which it really belongs. 



ILipparchia diffusa was, when I first took it in the Ravi basin (I 

 found it not uncommon in 1866 and 1867) at once recognised by me 

 as merely a variety of H. Seinele, and I had the less difiiculty in coming 

 to this conclusion, for whereas the specimens of H. Semele (which is 

 very common in Persia) I took near Tabriz and other parts of Azer- 

 bijan agreed exactly with English specimens, those taken in the 

 Shemron, due north of Tehran, had a slight tendency to vary, and 

 specimens from Shahrood-i-Bostan and the mountains near Meshed 

 showed a further, but still very slight, variation. I have no doubt the 

 "missing links" will turn up in Afghanistan (whenever it becomes 

 safe to collect there), and that this form from the Eavi basin, as far as 

 we know, the eastern limit of H. Semele, will prove inseparable from 

 the European type. 



Kulu, Kangra, Punjab : 



August 22nd, 1885. 



