DISTRIBUTION OF PAPILIONIDA/ IN THE HIMALAYAS. 197 
either side, can, individually, rarely produce more than from one 
to two dozen species—that is, from twenty-five to fifty per cent. 
less than is the case in the small Sikkim section of the South- 
eastern Himalayas. Even in the comparatively well-known and 
much more extensive continental district of the Malay Peninsula 
the number of species belonging to this particular family, as 
recorded by Mr. W. L. Distant in his excellent work on the 
‘ Butterflies of the Malay Peninsula,’ falls short of the number 
inhabiting the very circumscribed area of Sikkim by fourteen. 
And what makes this fact the more remarkable still is that the 
latter district is situated not only remote from the Equator, but 
is wholly outside the Tropics besides. This singular superfluity 
-of species, however, is shared by all the other families and sub- 
families of Rhopalocera, with the exception of the smaller 
statistically and more strictly equatorial Hupleine, Elymniine, 
Morphine, and Nemeobiine. Im short, as the late lamented 
Mr. Lionel de Nicéville remarked to me upon the occasion of a 
visit which I paid to him at the Indian Museum in Calcutta, 
‘** Nowhere else in the Kastern Hemisphere will one find butter- 
flies so abundant either in species or individuals.” 
In some measure this is to be accounted for by the continuous 
succession of phytogeographical and climatal conditions pro- 
duced by the temperature and precipitation at different levels, at 
least as regards the number of species ig concerned, and pro- 
vides a somewhat parallel case to the conditions which exist 
in the Alps of Central Europe, the species becoming similarly 
less numerous as one recedes therefrom upon either side. But 
as regards the overwhelming number of individuals of many 
species to be met with in the South-eastern Himalayas another 
set of factors apparently comes into play. Without, however, 
entering here into a discussion as to the cause or contributory 
cause of the latter remarkable phenomena, I will just venture 
the remark that in my opinion the organic competition in the 
shape of animal enemies, chiefly ants, is possibly less severe in 
the Himalayas than it is further south, an assertion founded 
principally on personal observations in Ceylon, where, notwith- 
standing the wonderful richness and marvellous luxuriance of 
the vegetation, butterflies are comparatively very scarce in indi- 
viduals (with a few exceptions), while ants, which probably 
constitute their principal enemies in the adolescent state, are, 
on the other hand, exceedingly abundant there. In this “ Isle of 
Spices,”’ in fact, I found butterflies less plentiful in individuals, 
and the number of species to be procured in a single day 
frequently fewer than in many localities in the South of Eng- 
land. That this was not my experience alone, I may recall the 
fact that the late Sir Greville Smyth, whom I met collecting up 
at Kandy upon various occasions, remarked to me that, although 
he had made several visits to Ceylon, he had always found 
