l64 NYMPIIALID/E. SATYRIN.E. ZOPHOESSA. 



This genus was not a very satisfactory one even when only tlie type species Z. sura was 

 known ; but since the discovery of the other species it has become ahnost impossible to 

 specify the characters which may be relied on to distinguish it from Lethe. Typically 

 Zophoessa is of larger size, but Z. alkmsonia, Z. baladeva and Z. jalaiirida are smaller than 

 the average Letkes. Typically the hindwing is more strongly caudate, but Z. yatna has the tails 

 almost obsolete ; typically again Zophoessa has the forewing more triangular with the outer 

 margin concave, but no species of Zophoessa has the forewing so concave as it is in L. sinorix, 

 andln almost all the outer margin of that wing is straight; typically the character of the 

 markings of the underside is much more variegated and usually with bolder and straighter 

 transverse lines than in Lethe, but in Z. jalaurida the markings of the underside agree well 

 in general style with those of Z. nicetas. Typically again in Zophoessa the base of the forewing 

 is almost destitute of the dense clothing of short hairs wliich in many species of Ldhe overlies 

 the scales on the base of the wing and the entire discoidal cell, but this feature it also lacks in 

 common with the concluding group of small Lethes which includes L. nicetas. But on the other 

 hand there are no sexual glandular patches or tufts of hairs on the wings in Zophoessa such as are 

 found in the first group of Lethes ; and perhaps the most important difference lies in the small 

 extent to which the sexes, so far as is known, are differentiated in Zophoessa ; in all cases in which 

 both sexes are known the female differs but little either in colour or markings from the male ; 

 and there is no such prominent characteristic of the female as the white band on the forewing 

 so general in Lethe. Z. yaina appears to belong more properly to the second group of the 

 next genus, Neope, with which it corresponds in the outline of the wings as well as in 

 the markings of the underside. See remarks on tlie genus AWpe. 



154. Zophoessa sura, Doubleday, Hewitson. 

 Z. sura, Doubleday, Hewitson, Gen. D. L., vol. ii, p. 362, n. i, pi. l.\i, fig. i (1851), female. 



Habitat : Bhutan, Sikkim, Sylhet, Assam. 



Expanse : 2 8 to 3 "4 inches. 



Description : Male : Upperside, velvety chocolate-brown. Forrunng with the outer 

 margin paler, with a suffused submarginal darker line. A very indistinct blackish bar near the 

 outer end of the cell, an equally indistinct fulvous spot on the costa beyond the cell, and another 

 subapical trifid one somewhat more distinct. ILindioing strongly caudate, with a broad outer 

 paler band bordered both inwardly and outwardly with a darker shade of the ground-colour, 

 and bearing five round dark brown spots, the middle one the smallest. Two marginal 

 pale lines, the inner one the more prominent, divided by a line of the ground-colour. 

 Underside paler, with dark brown and silvery purplish-white bars and markings. 

 Forewing light brown, gradually deepening from the base to beyond the middle of the wing where 

 it forms a dark band across the wing just beyond the cell, sharply defined, and somewhat 

 sinuous outwardly ; beyond this is a silvery purplish-white band, broad at the costa, diffused 

 outwardly, and gradually disappearing towards the inner margin, terminated on the costa 

 by a pure white spot. Beyond this band the ground-colour is again light brown, ending before 

 the margin in another dark band sharply defined outwardly. The margin is pale brown, 

 bearing a fine darker brown line ; the extreme margin defined with a dark line. Tiiree small 

 decreasing ocelli on the discoidal and upper median interspaces, above which are three small 

 costal purplish-white spots divided by the subcostal nervules. The ocelli are variable 

 in number, some specimens having two, others only one ocellus. Crossing the cell at its 

 middle is a wide deep brown bar, beyond which is a slightly narrower silvery purplish-white 

 bar ; then another dark bar inwardly sharply defined, outwardly becoming diffused into the paler 

 ground-colour ; the extremity of the cell again irrorated with silvery in an incomplete bar. 

 Llind-wing light brown, shaded with deeper brown, and crossed by first a short basal streak ; 

 second by a pair of narrow irregular lines enclosing a space of a deeper colour than the 

 ground ; third by two other lines from the costa to the abdominal margin, somewhat far apart 

 an<l irregular, the space between them irrorated with silvcjy bluish-white, which is also the 

 colour of uU the lines. The inner of this last pair of lines is inwardly narrowly, and the outer 



