( cxxxi ) 



nerii, Ilmmorrhagin fuciformis). Since there is no barrier to prevent these 

 species from going farther east, it is manifest that the reason for their restriction 

 to, and their occurrence in, Sonth and West India is biological. That is to 

 say, the "Western Peninsula offers conditions of life suitable to those Falaearctic 

 and African species, while the Central North and East of India do not. The 

 differences between the West and North East are biological, most likely meteoro- 

 logical. There is nothing whatever in the composition of the Sphingid fauna 

 (and of other families of Lepidoptera) to indicate that there ever was another 

 road of communication between the Western Peninsula inclusive of Ceylon and 

 Continental Africa than South Persia and Arabia, though the road may have 

 been less barren. 



The species which arc common to the Oriental and Aethiopian Regions, 

 besides the before-mentioned Dcilepkila nerii, which is decidedly African, are only 

 four — namely, Herse coiikoIvuU, CepJwnodes hi/las, Celerio lineata lirornica, and 

 llipjiotion celerio. Two of them are wanderers, occnrring nearly all over the 

 Eastern Hemisphere {Herse contohidi and Hippotio)i celerio) : Celerio linecUa 

 livornica is also a wanderer, but does not go farther east than Continental 

 Asia and Japan, lineata being absent from the Malay Archipelago and repre- 

 sented again by a special subspecies in Australia {€. lineata licornicoides) ; and 

 Cephonodes hjlas from the Aethiopian Region is snbspecifically different from 

 tlie Oriental In/las. It is evident that, apart from the three wanderers, no 

 exchange has taken place within more recent date. Nevertheless, there is a close 

 affinity between the two tropical Old World Regions dating from a more remote 

 j)eriod, evidence of which is fonnd in the genera Acherontia, ('lanis, Lencophlebia, 

 Foli/pti/chus, Sphingonaepiopsis, Deilepkila, Sepliele, Cephonodes, Uippotion, and 

 Tkeretra, which are found both in Africa and India. There are, Ijesides, several 

 Aethiopian genera which are close allies of Indian ones — for instance, Pemba, 

 J'oliana, Maassenia, Rhadinopasa ; and the Oriental genus Gurelca i s a derivation 

 from Temnora, Rhodosoma of India comes close to Ihjpaedalia of West Africa ^ 

 and the Aethiopian Atemnora is the prototype of Macroglossum, the tifty-one 

 Oriental species of which are almost 25 per cent, of the total numl)er of 

 species of Oriental Sphingidae. 



The African Sphingid fauna is as yet very imperfectly known. The pro- 

 portion of undescribed species arriving from there is very large. We do not 

 think the number of species and genera is much inferior to that of the Oriental 

 fauna. There are as yet known u2 genera and 170 species,* of which 3S genera 

 and 172 siiecies are peculiar to the Aethiopian fauna, a proportionally very large 

 number. Ackeroittia utropos and DvilepJdla nerii, which extend outside tlie 

 Region, but are also Aethiopian in origin, must be ailded, making a total of 174 

 truly Aethiopian Splnngidae. The se})aration of the African Continent into a 

 Western, a Southern, and an Eastern district is not very distinct in the Hawk 

 Moths. The faunistic differences between the West African forest region and the 

 drier and more open districts of the Eastern side of the Continent are biological 



* //i/ijjutidit aurora, Uc^cribLil on p. 81-', i^ nut included in tliis muiibcr. 



