59 



and Lacteola Dist. are found also in the same regions as the type and 

 approaching this one by all kinds of transitions. Thus the same thing occurs 

 as in the form Belisar of T. Belisama Cram., which is also found at the 

 same time and in the same localities as the type, and connected with this latter 

 one by transitions. 



During life the eyes of this species are pale-green. It is also very remark- 

 able for the study of colour-evolution. Nearest to the red colour, originally 

 common also to this genus, are still some American species, as T. Nicippe Cram, 

 and some which still have a bright orange colour; in other species as f i. in 

 T. Elathea Cram., there are only a few relics of this red. Among the 

 numerous species of this genus we now find a complete series of all the degrees 

 of paling, down from the orange, through all the shades of yellow, to the pure 

 white of the South-American T. Albula Cram.; and that in the great inequality 

 which characterizes every evolutional change, sometimes occupying the whole 

 wings, sometimes only one side or even only some parts, while at the same 

 time an occasionally stronger or occasionally feebler accretion of the black takes 

 place. In the Java species yellow is usually the colour, but this yellow has 

 different shades, sometimes it approaches the pale orange, and very often it is 

 very pale; in the form Lacteola Dist. already mentioned, it has even turned 

 into white. Moreover, the same evolutionary process of the colour is very 

 obvious on the underside of T. Hecabe L. On that side there are still often 

 yellowish brown spots of the same colour as are often also found in the 

 Catilla 9 of C. Pomona F. on the same side of the wings, and that also occur 

 there more or less numerously, being for this reason recognizable as relics 

 of the same nature, caused by a mixture of the much paled red with a 

 later developed black. In many cf specimens of Java and also in many of 

 Sumatra those spots have nowadays quite or almost entirely disappeared, but 

 in other 9 of Java they still exist, especially, but not only, in the specimens of 

 the mountainous regions. It has been pretended that it is a sexual characteristic 

 whether or not these spots occur on the underside; Dr. van der Weele, who 

 has made a special study of this subject, has, at my request, examined in this 

 respect a number of Hecabes, caught at Batavia at the same time; he found 

 that there exists no difference between both sexes in this regard. The greater 

 or lesser extension of the black border on the upper-side of the hind-wings, on 

 the contrary, is generally a sexual characteristic. As a rule this border is 

 narrower in the cf and separated sharper from the inner part than in the 9- 

 Yet sometimes there are 9 which it is difficult to distinguish from (^, because 

 this black is also in a state of evolutional transition. On the upper-side we 

 can observe that the black border of the fore-wings is not always equally strong. 



