Miscellaneous. 1 05 



and the precocious hatching which results therefrom the young are 

 swimming larvae well suited to disseminate the forms and to cause 

 them to vary. In fact, the Dorippidoe of the first series are much 

 less numerous than those of the second : of the former ten species 

 are known, as against fifty belonging to the second group. 



Like the primitive Dynomeninas (Acanthodromia, Bynomene 

 Ursula — a near ally of D. FilhoU), the Dorippidae originated in the 

 Caribbean Sea and in the neighbouring parts of the Pacific at an 

 epoch when the Isthmus of Panama had not yet emerged from the 

 bottom of the waters. The Caribbean Sea, in fact, numbers not 

 less than five-and-twenty species, belonging to all the genera except 

 Cymonomops and Dorippe, which are those in which, in each sub- 

 family, evolution has assumed its greatest intensity. Nay, more, it 

 is the primitive forms that abound iu the Caribbean Sea (fifteen 

 species of Falicus out of twenty-two, all the known species of the 

 genera Cymopolus and Corycodus), while the ultimate forms prevail 

 in the centres remote from this sea (ten out of twelve species of 

 Dorippe in the western Indo-Pacific area, Cymonomops). It is to 

 be observed that several species belonging to the Caribbean Sea are 

 found again in the eastern Atlantic, or are represented by very 

 closely allied forms in the American waters of the Pacific. These 

 facts, in conjunction with many others of the same nature, allow us 

 to conclude that at an epoch but little removed from our own the 

 Strait of Panama still existed, and that the relations between the 

 two shores of the Atlantic were much closer than they are to-day *. 

 — Comptes Bendus, t. cxxv. no. 20 (November 15, 1897), pp. 784- 

 787. 



" Butterjlies from the Pacijic Islands." 



To the Editors of the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History.' 



Gentlemen, — I venture to direct your attention to the very inaccu- 

 rate title given by Mr. Grose-Smith to his paper on new butterflies in 

 the last number of your Journal (ser. 6, vol. xx. p. 515). Of the 

 six species there described, the first is from Sumba Island, one of 

 the Timor group, the next four from New Guinea, and the last from 

 one of the Solomon Islands. To call this a paper on " New Species 

 of Butterflies from the Pacific Islands " seems to me a serious 

 geographical error. 



I am, Gentlemen, 



Yours &c., 

 3 Hanover Square, W. P. L. Sclatee. 



Dec. 2nd, 1897. 



* The two subfamilies of which I have spoken above are the Cyclo- 

 dorippinae and the Dorippinae. In a subsequent paper I shall show 

 that the former divides itself naturally into two tribes — Cymonomi 

 (Cymopolus, Cymononms) and Cyclodorippi (Corycodus, Cyclodorippe, 

 Cymonomops) ; the latter into two others — Palici {Palicus) and Dorippi 

 (Ethusa, Ethusina, Dorippe). 



Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 7. Vol. i. 8 



