lO 



I take this butterHy for the same species as the Hiposcriiia Narendra 

 Moore, described by this entomologist from the mountains of Ceylon. The 

 eyes of the living insect are pale-grey. It occurs in Java in three forms. The 

 type is characterized by the black hooked stripe on the upper-side of the 

 fore-wings, of which I spoke in the Introduction, and opposite to which also 

 the black of the terminal margin protrudes; so that the black, coming there 

 from both sides, tries to unite and form a black transversal band across the 

 wing, which, however, has succeeded only with a few specimens, and then not 

 even completely (pi. I, fig. 4^, 4l>). In both forms Lucasii Wall., (pi. I, fig. 4^:), 

 and Leptis Felder, especially in the former, this hooked stripe is also indicated, 

 but the increase of the black fails ; either that this increase does not yet take 

 place, or that these forms are already in a more advanced stage of colour- 

 evolution, in which the black is again disappearing. Which of these two 

 possibilities is taking place at present, is, as is often the case, difficult to decide ; 

 the apparent increase of the black with the type, might indeed just as wel 

 indicate a process of gradual decrease. 



What is now the reason of this difference in the increase of the black on 

 the upper-side of the fore-wings between the type and the two other forms? It 

 is apparently of the same nature as that which makes Bingham distinguish the 

 type of his Appias Lalage Doubl. from the race Lagela Moore. But while 

 these two races are generally said to live in different regions, the type and 

 the form Lucasii at least occur in Java both in the same localities, though the 

 latter, as it appears to me, is much less numerous than the type, and I only 

 am acquainted with the (? specimens of that form while I possess both sexes of 

 the type and of the form Lepxis ; Fruhstorfer seems, however, to have got 

 both sexes of the form Lucasii too. Partisans of the doctrine of seasonal 

 varieties certainly want to explain the said differences in that way, but besides 

 the reasons already given in the Introduction, why I may not simply accept 

 such an explanation, it is difficult to understand in this way why with the 

 form Lepxis, which seems to live as a rule as a separate race in other localities 

 than the two other forms, the condition of the black is always the same, 

 and for this reason is certainly not influenced by seasonal stages. It is certain 

 that, before a definite decision can be given about the way in which the type 

 and the form Lucasii appear beside each other, a closer research is necessary ; 

 this, however, does not seem doubtful to me, that the said difference in all its 

 forms is merely the consequence of the process of colour-evolution which is 

 not in the same stage of evolution, neither in the different individual insects 

 of the same species, nor in those of the different races. 



It is certain that the tendency to become gradually paler, which tendency belongs 



