84 liUOPALOCKHA MALAYAN A. 



the following: — Anitimiis, though a widely spread geuus, of which a species (A. niphc) is recorded 

 both from Ceylou aud Sumatra ; Siimhrenthia, well represented in Continental India, and 

 also received from Sumatra aud Java ; PiiramdH, of which the ubiquitous P. canlui may remain 

 to be discovered; and Apatum, a very widely distributed genus, which, though absent from the 

 Peninsula, is still somewhat represented by the closely allied genus Eidacura. The genus 

 Vanessa, in the form of its species V. C-uurciiiii, has been recorded from Penaug by Mr. Kirby,* 

 probably on the strength of a specimen with that habitat attached, in the Dublin Museum, but 

 having seen no other specimen of that species in any of the collections I have examined, and 

 not having met with it myself when collecting on the spot, I have, pending corroborative 

 testimony, not enumerated the genus here. With these exceptions the Oriental genera of the 

 Ni)iiiphahiia are well represented in the Malay Peninsula. 



The characters on which I have relied for the separation of the NymphaUna from the 

 Morphina, viz., the structure of the palpi, will I think be found generally to obtain, and to be of 

 an easily recognisable nature. Much of the apparent dilatation of the anterior margin of the 

 palpi is due to the presence of a thick clothing of long hairs, irregular in arrangement and 

 structure, but still of sufficient constancy to render the dilated appearance of the palpi at the 

 anterior margins uniformly and easily discernible. 



Division would of course materially assist the study of this large group, especially if the 

 whole, and not a small faunistic portion only, were being examined ; but, beyond some general 

 resemblances of form and colour, I have found httle on which reliance could be placed for 

 divisional separation, and have therefore endeavoured to supply a synopsis of the genera en hloc.\ 

 When the developmental characters of the NijuiphaUna are more fully worked out, natural 

 divisions will probably be manifest ; at present, though larval coincidences do exist in small 

 divisions of genera, the structural characters of the perfect insects do not always agree in 

 a like ratio. I 



* Cat. Dim-u. Lep. p. 181, 1 (1871). 



f Amougst others who have divided the subfam. Ni/nqihalliuc, aud whose views will well repay study, may be 

 mentioued Herrich-Schiiffer (Curresp.-Blatt. Zool.-miuei-al. ver. Kegensb. 1864 — " Separat." pp. 16 — 40, where the whole 

 of the then recorded genera are analyzed and grouped) and Burmeister (Descrip. Physiq. de la Kepubl. Ai-gent., vol. v., 

 pp. 130 et seq., where a portion of the Neotropical fauna is alone treated). 



\ The uncertainty oi the larval characters in this group, when taken as material for formulating sectional divisions, is 

 ■well shown by a reference to the views of Horsfield, who made a dihgent and thorough examination of these characters for 

 systematic purposes. In his Thysanuri/orm group, as already pointed out (ante, p. 37), genera are there associated by larval 

 characters, which appertain not only to the Nytiijihalini^ (both Morphbia and Nynqjlialiiia) b\it also to the Satyriiue. It is, 

 however, scarcely a satisfactory feature in the study of Eastern llhopalocera that since the time of Horsiield's epoch-making 

 publication, scarcely anything has been published illustrative of the larvie of Oriental species, till— after an expiration of fifty 

 years — the drawings of the Bros, de Alwis have recently appeared in Moore's ' Lepidoptera of Ceylon.' This is the more 

 regretable when we remember the number of enthusiastic collectors of butterflies, especially in the East, whose captures, 

 though of high scientific value, — as increasing our knowledge of genera and species, and therefore necessarily of the 

 geographical distribution of the same, — could still add so much to our knowledge by careful breeding, aud even more 

 careful description of the results of the same. Conchologists are now agi-eeing that the description of the outer covering of the 

 iiuimal alone does not necessarily meet the requirements of biology, aud the time is probably not far distant when tlie true 

 describer of an insect will be expected to give its life-history. In Japan Mr. H. fryer is adding greatlv to our knowledge in 

 this respect (see Trans. Ent. Soc. 188'2, p. 485), aud Mr. Hocking has lately contributed to om' information of the earher stage 

 of Himalayan Ehopalocera (Proc. Zool. iSoc. 1882, p. 234). 



