248 Notes on a protean Indicui biitterfiij. 



but it does not appear to be realised by some cabinet 

 naturalists in Europe. 



Dr. Felder, who was the first to describe this species, 

 named the southern form, the one extreme, Euplcea 

 harrisii ; and the northern form, the other extreme, 

 E. hopei. In this he was fully justified, as his material 

 was very limited, as I can testify, having seen his type- 

 specimens in Vienna ; and these, taken by themselves, 

 are quite distinct. Mr. Butler then added to the 

 synonymy by describing Stictoplcea microsticta, with 

 three submarginal spots to the hind wing on the upper 

 side, and S. hinotata with two. Lastly, Mr. Moore 

 described S. rcgina, with no spots at all on the hind 

 wing; S. pi/gnuea, which is simply a dwarf of the 

 northern form ; and S. croivleyi, which combines the 

 characters of the two, having the fore wing of the 

 southern and the hind wing of the northern form. In 

 his 'Lepidoptera Indica,' Mr. Moore admits six of these 

 species as distinct, rejecting only *S'. microsticta, on the 

 ground that it was described from a specimen without 

 locality, and has broader wings than S. hopei; and he 

 devotes two plates to the illustrating of them. In the 

 series now exhibited, — taken, let me repeat for the sake 

 of emphasis, in a single spot, — every one of these species 

 can be accurately matched ; and, as they are now proved 

 to intergrade one into the other, and also are not con- 

 fined to any geographical region, these seven species 

 must be reduced to one. If stay-at-home naturalists 

 would only pay a little more heed to the observations of 

 field naturalists, such results would not have to be 

 deplored. Messrs. Wood-Mason, Marshall, Elwes, Adam- 

 son, Watson, and the writer have all drawn attention to 

 the fact that the species of certain groups of Eupkea, 

 including this one, are eminently variable, as our field 

 observations had proved them to be ; and yet these 

 expressed opinions of competent naturalists are per- 

 sistently passed over in silence, and ignored by those 

 who have never seen an EupUea alive in its native home. 



