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XII. On the Lepidoptera of the Altai Mountains. By 

 Henry John Elwes, F.R.S., F.L.S., etc. 



[Read June 7th, 1899.] 



Plates XI— XIV. 



I. 



EHOPALOCERA. 



There is probably no great range of mountains in Asia 

 which has been so unaccountably neglected by modern 

 naturalists, as those which form the boundary between 

 Siberia and MongoHa, and Avhich comprise the western end 

 of what are known as the Altai and Sayansk Mountains. 

 Their outlying spurs were partially explored in the last 

 century by Pallas, and in the middle of the present one 

 have been visited by several Russian and German geolo- 

 gists and botanists, among whom Helmersen,* Ledebour,! 

 and Tchihatcheff,J are, as far as I know, the only ones who 

 have pubHshed their travels in German and French. In 

 the Russian language there is no doubt a quantity of 

 literature relating to the natural history of these mountains, 

 which must unfortunately remain unknown to the great 

 majority of foreigners. The only entomologist, however, 

 who has published anything of much value on the 

 Lepidoptera of these mountains is Lederer,§ whose account 

 of the collections made by Kindermann in the years 1852 

 and 1853 in the extreme western part of the Altai range 

 is very useful. He enumerates 108 species of Rhopalocera 

 of which, however, only 8 or 10 are species not found in 

 Europe. ' Quite recently Herr Ruckbeil, a well-known 

 collector employed by Herr Rudolph Tancre, spent three 

 seasons in the neighbourhood of the Saisan lake and at 

 Katun-Karagai and Tchingistai, which are a little to the 



* Von Helmersen, Reise nacli clem Altai, im Jalire 1834. St. 

 Petersburg, 1848. 



t Ledebour, Reise dutch das Altai-Gebirge. Berlui, 1829. 



X Tchihatcheff, Voyage Scientifique dans L'Altai Onentale. Pans, 



§ Lepidopterologisches aus Sibirien. Verb. Zool. Bot. Ges. Wien., 

 1853, pp. 1—36 {sep). Weiterer Beitrag zur Schmetterlnigs-Fauna 

 des Altai gfbirges in Sibirien. op. cit. 185.5, pp. 97—120. 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1899.— PART III. (SEPT.) 



