Lepidoptera of Sikkim. 295 
In studying this list it must be remembered that 
Sikkim, though it seems to have the greatest number of 
species, is but a very small area as compared to those 
from which the other two lists are taken. It is, how- 
ever, much better explored than the Malay Peninsula, 
which doubtless contains many more species than those 
here enumerated, even when allowance is made for the 
reduction which would take place in the number if 
Mr. Distant’s views as to specific variation were the 
same as my own. 
Though the number of species in the North-west 
Himalaya seems small by comparison, yet Ido not think 
that any one locality of the same area as Sikkim would 
give more than two-thirds of the number here included ; 
and many of the tropical species included on Mr. 
Doherty’s authority extend very little, if any, further 
west than Kumaon. In fact, it is clear that Sikkim is 
at least twice as productive in the variety of its butter- 
flies than any place in the North-west Himalaya, and 
probably very much richer than any one locality in the 
Malay Peninsula. As the neighbourhood of Calcutta, 
which is, perhaps, better worked than any other place 
in the plains of Bengal, only affords about 160 species 
of butterflies (cf. de Nicéville in J. A.8.B., 1885), itis 
evident how important an influence a large extent of 
virgin forest has on the variety of Lepidoptera found in 
a tropical country. 
It is not possible to analyse the distribution of the 
genera found in Sikkim very exactly, as some of them, 
especially among the Lycenide, are recently proposed, 
and are here adopted with some doubt; and I have been 
obliged to exclude the Hesperide entirely, on account of 
our ignorance of their classification, and their more 
cosmopolitan distribution ; but I think the following 
results are sufficiently accurate for my purpose. I find, 
omitting the Hesperide, 121 genera, of which— 
33, or about 27 per. cent., are of more or less cosmo- 
politan distribution in the Old World, though 
most of them confined to the tropics. : 
51, or about 42 per cent., are characteristic of and 
nearly peculiar to the Indo-Malay subregion, some 
of them extending, however, to the Austro-Malay 
subregion. 
