116 BUTTEKFLIES. 



A LIST OF THE BUTTERFLIES OF SIKHIM. 



Bt LIONEL deNICEV'ILLE, F.E.S., c.m.z.s., &c. 



The list of the butterflies of Sikbim here given is largely based on 

 a somewhat similar list by my friends Messrs. H, J. Elvves and the late 

 Otto M oiler, which ap23eared in the Transactions of the Entomological 

 Society of London for 1888, 23ages 269 — 464, and is illustrated with 

 four plates, Nos. viii — xi. I have added many (94) species to the list, 

 which then numbered 537 species, and have brought up the nomencla- 

 ture to date. The notes on the times of appearance and the actual 

 spots where the various species occur are largely taken from the above- 

 cited paper, but I have not thought it necessary to give these notes 

 in quite such detail, and occasionally I have found it advisable to 

 add to them from my personal experience of Darjeeling and its neigh- 

 bourhood, which extends over 15 years, during which time I have 

 visited it annually and at nearly all seasons of the year. This list is 

 probably now nearly complete, as Sikhim has been most thoroughly 

 explored for butterflies, and not more than 50 species at a maximum 

 await discovery. As regards the order adopted in this list, I have 

 followed that of Mr. F. Moore in " Lepidoptera Indica" as far as 

 the book has been published ; afterwards I have taken the sequence of 

 the species adopted in my own work, "The Butterflies of India, 

 Burraah and Ceyh)n," which at present ends at the family Lycanidcc ; 

 finally, for the family Hesperiidce I have followed Lieutenant E. Y. 

 Watson's Classification and Revision of the Genera, as given in the 

 Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1893, pp. 3 — 132, 

 and plates i — iii. 



As the atmospheric effects in that part of Darjeeling which lies to 

 the east of the Tista river, and which is included in the Baling Divi- 

 sion of that district, are so different from those of the whole of the rest 

 of the district, it might be expected that the fauna should also vary. 

 The part of the Daling Division referred to is bounded on the north 

 by a very high continuous ridge of hills, running in the following 

 order from west to east: — Songchongloo (6,264 feet), Lolagann (6,000 

 feet), Sichoor (5,836 feet), Nankfloo (7,108 feet), Labah (7,000 feet), 

 Pankasarri (8,112 feet), and Kichila (10,400 feet), and continued thence 

 by a series of unnamed peaks along the south bank of the Ne Cliu 

 to Kamchala (7,852 feet) and the Jaldoka River, or Dd Chu, from the 

 east bank of which the ridge rises again to be continued far into 

 Bhutan. 1 his ridge seems to form a natural breakwater for rain- 

 clouds coming from the plains, and the average annual rainfall is more 

 than double that of the station of Darjeeling. The measured rain taken 



