( Ixvii ) 
underside, and the dry-season form being without those 
markings. He suggested as a possible explanation, that 
while the conspicuously marked wet-season form is concealed 
by the dense vegetation, the dry-season non-ocellated form 
had in the scantily-clothed jungle found protection by the 
gradual loss through natural selection of the conspicuous 
markings. Mr. de Nicéville’s specimens illustrating his 
paper were exhibited at a meeting of this Society in February, 
1885, but his view did not meet with much acceptance among 
the members present, nor was any alternative explanation of 
the phenomenon brought forward. He was able, however, in 
the following year to adduce proof of the correctness of his 
theory in a memoir* giving details of the rearing of one 
seasonal form from eggs laid by the other in four of the 
seven cases named by him in his previous paper, viz. :— 
Ypthima hiibneri and Y. howra ; Y. philomela and Y. marshallii ; 
Mycalesis mineus and M. indistans; Melanitis leda and M. 
ismene ; these pairs consisting respectively of the ocellated 
wet-season form and non-ocellated dry-season form of each 
species concerned. 
Just previously to the latter notable record of Mr. de 
Nicéville, Mr. W. Doherty had contributed to the same 
Journal t his four years’ observation of seasonal variation 
while collecting Indian butterflies. He brings to notice that, 
speaking generally, there were ows broods annually in that 
country, viz.: two in the wet season and two in the dry 
season, and that, while there was no perceptible difference 
between the two broods of the same season, there were often 
very marked differences between the wet-season broods and 
the dry-season ones. ‘These differences included size (the wet- 
season form boing usually smaller), the angulation of the 
wings, and the colouring and ocelli of the underside, and 
were well illustrated by species of Junonia, Ypthima, Mycalesis, 
* «On the Life-History of certain Calcutta Species of Satyrine, with 
special reference to the Seasonal Dimorphism alleged to occur in them.”’ 
(Op. cit., lv, pl. ii, p. 229, 1886.) 
7 ‘‘A List of Butterflies taken in Kumaon,.” (Journ. Asiat. Soc. 
Bengal, ly, pt ii, p. 107.) 
