118 LEPIDOPTERA INDICA. 
Typr.—M. Leda. 
THe species or M®ELANiTis ARE DiMorPHIC.—The species of this genus have 
two forms, the result of a wet season-brood and of a dry-season brood occurring 
within the year, and to Mr. L. de Nicéville belongs the credit of having discovered 
and proved the fact that the common Indian species, M. /smene, is dimorphic, and 
that the forms hitherto known as M. Leda and M. Ismene were only the wet and dry- 
season broods of one species. 
The two forms in this genus differ, not only in the ocellated or non-ocellated 
markings of the underside, as occurs in the species of the allied genera of 
Mycalesis and Ypthima, but the outline of the wings of the specimens in 
each brood, in Melanitis, also differ, especially in the males, the forewing in the 
males of the wet-season brood being shorter, its exterior margin nearly even or with 
but a very slight angle below the apex; whereas in the males of the dry-season 
brood, the forewing is subfaleate and has a more or less prolonged acute angle below 
the apex ; and in the hindwing, also, of the wet-season brood the angle on middle of 
the exterior margin is short and obtuse, but in the hindwing of the dry-season brood 
this angle is also acute and prolonged. 
Further, the undersides of the dry-season or unocellated-brood are very variable, 
and in their markings and tints of colour they harmonize so completely with the 
coloration of decaying vegetation, that when settled amongst dead leaves and dried- 
up grass, it is almost impossible to see them. 
MELANITIS ISMENE. 
Wet-Srason Broop (Plate 122, figs. 1, la, larva and pupa, 1, b,e,d,e, d 9). 
Papilio Leda, Drury, Exot. Ins. i. pl. 15, figs. 5, 6, 9 (1773). Cramer, Pap, Exot. iii. pl. 196, figs. c, 
D (1780). (nee Linneus).* 
Melanitis Leda, Fabricius, Syst. Gloss. (Iliger’s Mag. vi. p. 282, 1807). Moore, Catal. Lep. Mus. 
E. I. C. i. p. 222 (1857); id. Lep. Ceylon, i. p. 15, pl. 10, figs. 1, a, b, ¢ 9 (1880). Butler (part) 
Catal. Satyr. Brit. Mus. p. 1 (1868); cd. Catal. Fabr. Lep. B. M. p. 9 (1869). Distant, Rhop. 
Malay. p. 41, pl. 4, fig. 10, ¢ (1882). Marshall and de Nicéville, Butt. of India, ete. i. p. 252 
(1883). De Nicéville, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1886, p. 237, pl. 12, fig. 4, larva and pupa. 
Oreas M, Leda, Hiibner, Samm]. Exot. Schmett. i. pl. 91, figs. 1, 2, 2 (1806-16). 
Hipio Leda, Hiibner, Verz. bek. Schmett. p. 56 (1816). 
Satyrus Leda (part) Godart, Enc. Méth. ix. p. 478 (1819). 
Hipparchia Leda, Horsfield, Catal. Lep. Mus. E. I. C. pl. 8, fig. 9, larva and pupa (1829). 


* The Pap. Leda, Linn. 8. N. 1758, p. 474, is an Amboina species, quite distinct from the Indian. 
See Butler, Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1885, p. vi. Linnzeus’ reference to Edwards’ Birds, pl. 297, is not given 
in the 1758 edition, but is erroneously added in the 1767 edit. of Syst. Nat. Edwards’ figure, however, 
represents the dry-season form of our Indian species. 
