60 LYCANIDAL. MEGISBA. 
sometimes without, a patch of white on the disc, this patch moreover being very variable in size ; 
the wings also are glossed obscurely with purple in some lights. The underside is greyish, 
marked with very numerous fuscous and black spots ; these in the forewing of the rains form are 
so numerous, being so thickly sprinkled over the disc of the wing that it would be difficult to 
count them ; a large proportion of them have, however, entirely disappeared in the dry-season 
form. The opposite sexes are very similarly marked, but the female has more white on the upper- 
side in the dry-season form than the male. As noted on page 48, Mr. Doherty is of opinion that 
this genus is closely allied to the genera Pithecops, Horsfield, and Neofithecops, Distant, owing 
to the similar construction of the egg. To judge from the imago alone, I certainly think that it 
is much more closely allied to the true Zycenas ; in habits and flight it almost exactly resembles 
Nacaduba ardates, Moore. The male has no secondary sexual characters. The genus is pro- 
bably strictly confined to the Indo-Malayan region. 
Genus 106.—MEGISBA, Moore. (PLATE XXVI). 
Megisba, Moore, Lep. Cey., vol. i, p. 71 (1881); id., Distant, Rhop. Malay., p. 457 (1886); Pathadia, 
Moore, Journ. A. S. B., vol. liii, pt. 2, p. 21 (1884). 
“ Allied to Pithecops [= Neopithecops, Distant]. FOREWING, differs in its triangular form ; 
first subcostal nervule emitted at nearly one-half length before the end of the discoidal cell, 
second subcostal at one-third before its end, /2ird subcostal at one-eighth, fourth subcostal at 
one-half beyond and terminating before the apex ; disco-cellular nervules very slender ; second 
median nervule emitted immediately before the end of the cell, frs¢ median at one-half before 
its end ; submedian nervure straight. HINDWING, afex convex, over margin oblique towards 
anal angle, abdominal margin long ; first subcostal nervule emitted at one-fifth before the end 
of the cell; second and third median nervules from a short distance beyond the end of the cell. 
Abdomen long, reaching to the anal angle of the hindwing ; aztenne with a shorter spatular 
club” than in Meofithecops ; no tail to hindwing. Zyesnaked. (Moore, 1. c. in Lep. Cey.) 
Megisba has the costa of the forewing almost straight, the apex acute, the outer margin nearly 
straight in the male, slightly convex in the female. Veofithecops has the costa strongly arched, 
the apex rounded, the outer margin very convex in both sexes. In Megisba the costal nervure 
terminates about opposite to the apex of the cell ; the first subcostal nervule is bent upwards 
not far from its base towards the costal nervure, the costal nervure having the appearance of 
being bent down to meet it, but the two veins are free, though they approach towards each 
other very closely in the male, not quite so closely in the female ; the second subcostal nervule 
has its base midway between the bases of the first subcostal and the upper discoidal ; the third 
subcostal originates about midway between the base of the upper discoidal and the apex of the 
wing ; the middle and lower disco-cellular nervules are of about equal length, the middle out- 
wardly, the lower inwardly, oblique ; the second median nervule originates a little before the 
lower end of the cell, 
Mr. Moore has described as follows a genus which he has named Pathalia: ‘‘ Closely 
allied to J/egisha. FOREWING, comparatively longer and less regularly triangular in form. 
HINDWING, somewhat narrower, and witha slender tail at the end of the first median nervule, 
Venation similar. Second joint of Za/fi shorter, the third joint longer andmore slender. Type, 
P. albidisca, Moore.” It might have been assumed that Mr. Moore intended that the presence 
of the tail in Pathalia should be the distinguishing character between it and A/egisba, no other 
characters of any value being given or stated with any precision, but this view is negatived by 
his having placed in the genus A/egisba a species (sikkima) which has tails, and by his having named 
for the Indian Museum, Calcutta, certain tailed specimens from the Andaman Isles, Bholahat, and 
Sikkim, “ Megisha thwaitesi,” that species not possessing those appendages typically. The 
genus Pathalia has therefore no /ocus standi, and but one genus only can be recognized for 
these insects : moreover it would seem that they really form but one species only, as the presence 
or absence of the tail is not even of specific value, and there is evidently so much seasonal varia- 
tion, at any rate in Sikkim, in this one species, that that phenomenon can satisfactorily account 
for the entire absence of white on the upperside in one form of the species which appears in 
