LYCANID. CURETIS. 285° 
and spots, some of which appear to be raised or embossed ; in some examples these 
bands are prominent, and the whole surface is sprinkled with minute black dots. 
The females are more variable: they are black above, usually with a large white 
patch in the middle of each wing, anda conspicuous disco-cellular black mark in the fore- 
wing ; the white portion of the wings is very variable in size. Sometimes the white portions 
are replaced by ochreous patches, which, in C. saronis from the Nicobor Isles, are sometimes 
very small, sometimes so large as to occupy half the area of the forewing. The underside 
of the female is like that of the male. The outline of the wings, as noted above by Mr. 
Distant, is also variable: in some species, the forewing is much acuminated at the apex, 
concave below the apex to the first median nervule, then inwardly oblique, the hindwing 
being strongly angulated between the third median and discoidal nervules and again at the 
anal angle. In other species, the apex of the forewing is simply acute, the outer margin 
straight, and the hindwing evenly rounded. The larva and pupa are even more remarkable 
and peculiar than the imagines. The former does not appear to possess a honey gland, 
and I have never seen ants attending it, but the organs on the twelfth segment are enormously 
produced. The pupa is quite unique in shape and markings. The short abdomen of the imago 
and the ample fold of the inner margin of the hindwing, which is channelled so as to receive 
and conceal the entire abdomen when the wings are folded, is a marked feature of Curetis. 
‘* After a careful and repeated examination of a large series of specimens, and every wish to 
adopt the species proposed by other entomologists, I feel compelled most reluctantly to come 
to the conclusion that this genus, as we know it up to the present time, contains two species 
only—a. [=C.] buds, Doubleday and Hewitson, which is easily known, and 4. ¢hefis, Drury, 
of which the difficulty is to find two examples that are alike, varying in the males in the 
breadth of the margin, in the females in the colour of the centre of the wings, and on the 
underside of both from a pure spotless white to the clouded, distinctly-banded variety from 
Borneo and Celebes. A variety of the female in the collection of Mr, Wallace is all 
brown above, with the exception of a moderate-sized white spot in the middle of the fore- 
wing, and a minute round spot of the same colour near the apex of the hindwing.” (Aewitson, 
Ill. Diurn. Lep., p. 15). Ihave found precisely the same difficulty as Mr. Hewitson had 
done in splitting up the numerous forms of Czrefzs occurring in India into distinct and 
well-defined species. I have before me over four hundred and fifty specimens of both sexes of 
the genus. I am able to divide them into two distinct groups or species by the males : 
in the one, of which the type is C. ¢efzs, Drury, the outer black border of the forewing on 
the upperside, though variable in width, never extends along the inner margin, except slightly 
so in one species, C. @sopfus, Fabricius ; in the other, of which the type is C. duis, Doubles 
day and Hewitson, the black border invariably extends along the inner margin, and the extent 
of the black area is enormously variable. In C. ¢hefés the outline of the wings in all 
the different forms andin both sexes is constant, in C. duis on the contrary it is most 
inconstant : sometimes the apex of the forewing is acute only, as in C. ¢hetis ; in others it is 
highly acuminate ; and the hindwing in some is as evenly rounded asin C. ¢hetis, in others 
it is highly angulate in the middle of the outer margin and at the anal angle. The females 
of both groups appear to be dimorphic, some being white, others ochreous. As, however, 
the late Mr. Hewitson and myself alone appear to hold the view of the mutability of these 
species, I have in the following descriptions done my best to enabie my readers to follow the 
distinctions given by various authors to the different species, and to make my large material 
fit in with these descriptions. I hold, however, to the opinion as above expressed that there 
are but two distinct species occurring in the region dealt with in this book. I have made 
no remarks regarding the females, as it appears to be quite impossible to match them correctly 
with the described species of males except by breeding them from the egg, as I find that 
in very many instances more than one distinct form of the male occurs in one locality, and 
I know of no character by which the females can be paired with them. In the habitat 
headings I have given only the localities recorded by other authors for the several species, 
