( xiv ) 



black borders, and little or no chocolate markings beneath. 

 In purely tropical localities, where the difference of climate 

 in the seasons was not so marked, the different broods also 

 appeared to be less different from each other ; and in some 

 of the Malay Islands, such as the Nicobars, there seemed to be 

 forms which were worthy of specific separation, though not to 

 anything like the extent to which it had been carried. In 

 Japan, Terias had been to some extent bred from the egg, and 

 the opinion of the late Mr. Pryer, of Mr. Leech, and of all 

 others, so far as he knew, who had local knowledge, was in 

 favour of the identity of the various forms which Mr. Butler 

 had figured in the Transactions of this Society some j^ears 

 ago, whilst the opponents of the seasonal and local variation 

 theory had, as far as he could see, not brought forward 

 one word of evidence in their favour. Mr. Elwes concluded 

 by expressing a hope that collectors in the East, of whom 

 some were present on this occasion, would recognize the 

 importance of deciding these questions before they added 

 to the intolerable synonymy which now existed, and which 

 was only calculated to disgust students, without enlightening 

 them. 



Mr. G. F. Hampson afterwards stated that during seven 

 years' collecting in the Nilgiri Hills he had paid considerable 

 attention to the hecabe group of Terias, and had repeatedly 

 taken males and females with or without the chocolate 

 markings at all seasons of the year. He had come to the 

 conclusion that the forms of this group are extremely variable, 

 that the chocolate markings count for nothing whatever, and 

 that in the Nilgiris there may possibly be three species of the 

 hecabe group, viz. (1) a small form with narrow borders, as 

 hecabe, pnrrea ; (2) a larger form with broad borders, as 

 hecabeoicles, excavata ; and (3) a form with the border narrow 

 at the outer angle, and the red patch covering the whole apex 

 of the fore wing below, as uniformis, silhetana. Mr. Hampson 

 also states that on the Nilgiris, which is a region of heavy rain- 

 fall (on the western extremity 200 in. or more), he never takes 

 the forms with no chocolate markings whatever, which occur 

 in the arid and almost desert region of Siud. Mr. W. L. 

 Distant, Mr. F. D. Godman, Prof. Meldola, Mr. li. T. 



