yi PREFACE. 



Kr.ili or the southern extremity of Tenasserim on the north, to Cape Eomania, the Tanjung- 

 biihis, or "naked headhiud" of the Malays, in the south, inchiding the many islands on the 

 ■western and the less numerous islands on the eastern coasts ; * unfortunately the Zoology of 

 the whole of this arcaf is unknown, and our information is almost entirely derived from the 

 collections made at the different settlements along tlie western coast. It must therefore be 

 remembered that our knowledge of the butterflies and other living animals of the Malay 

 Peninsula is principally based on collections made at Kedah, Penang, Province WeUesley, 

 Perak, Selangor, Sungei Ujong, Malacca, Johore, and Singapore; and although there is no 

 reason to suppose that the fauna of the eastern portion of this narrow peninsula is much 

 different from that of the western, there are probably still many local species to be found 

 there, which will add considerably to our faunistic catalogues. I 



In comparing an insect fauna with those of surrounding areas, the physical geography, 

 geology, and botany of the different areas become factors of first importance in showing us not 

 only the road by which much specific migration may have taken place, but also whether the 

 surrounding conditions are capable of maintaining the emigrant species, and in an unmodified 

 form. Now a study of the Rhopalocera of the Malay Peninsula gives unmistakable proof of 

 the relationship both in genera and species to those of Burma and North-Eastern India on 

 one side and to the islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and — in a less degree— to Java at its southern 

 extremity. This is exactly what the physical geography and geology of the Peninsula would 

 lead us to expect. As Logan has remarked, " it is directly united not only geographically but 

 geologically with the continental mass, and, through the islands to the south and Sumatra on 

 the west, a connection with the rest of the Malayan Archipelago can be established." § Of the 

 classificatory details of the vegetation I do not possess sufficient knowledge to warrant an 

 assertion, but we must remember— as Spruce truly remarks when speaking of the distribution 

 of the Lepidoptera of the Amazon Valley — that it "can rarely correspond to the grander 

 features of the vegetation, for the simple reason that the food of caterpillars is scarcely ever 

 the foliage, &c., of the loftier forest trees, but chiefly of soft-leaved undershrubs and low trees, 

 (1) which grow under the shade of the forest, and have, many of them, a restricted range, 

 or (2) which spring up where the primeval woods have been destroyed, and in waste places 



'•■' The reader who may wish to consult some of the best and original descriptions of the Peninsula may be safely 

 referred to the ' Sketch of the Physical Geography and Geology of the Malay Peninsula,' by J. B. Logan (Journ. Ind. Ai'chip. 

 vol. ii. p. 83 (1848), the previously published chap. vii. of the first vol. of Newbold's ' British Settlements in the Straits of 

 Malacca' (1839), and also the excellent compilation of Crawlurd in his 'Dictionary of the Indian Islands and Adjacent 

 Countries,' p. 253 (1856). More modern accounts are often largely indebted to the above. 



f Much ingenuity has been displayed iu identifying the Malay Peninsula with the Ajirea Chersoncsus of the ancients, 

 and many modern writers have adopted the view. Prof. Haeckel, however, states his conviction that "The Tarshish of the 

 ancient Phoenicians and Hebrews can only have been Gallu ; the apes and peacocks, ivory and gold, which these navigators 

 brought from the legendary Tarshish, were actually known to the old Hebrew writers by the same names as they now bear 

 among the Tamils of Ceylon, and all the descriptions we derive from them of the much-frequented port of Tarshish apply to 

 none of the seaports of the island, but the Rockpoint — Puuto Galla" ('A Visit to Ceylon,' p. 173). On this siibject cue must 

 cite the nameless commentator alluded to by Jortin, "who, explaining 1 Kings x. 22, Once in three years cavie the navij of 

 Tarshish, hringing gold and silver, apes, and peacocks, says that by the ajocs we are to understand heretics" (' llemarks on 

 Eccles. Hist.' vol. i. p. 143). 



I As these pages are passing through the press, Mr. J. K. Bh-ch has forwarded to me a specimen of the ubiquitous 

 "Painted Lady," Pijrameis cardiii, Linn., which he captured on Penang Hill. 



§ Journ. Ind. .\rchipel. vol. ii. p. 'JU (1848). 



