468 Mr. H. J. Elwes on Butterflies faoni Japan. 



localities particularly in that part of the world, they are still, 

 in this case, misleading. 



Darjiling- is the central station and only town in British 

 Sikkim, and is about twenty miles in a direct line from the 

 plains, at an elevation of 7000 feet. It is the centre to which 

 all native collectors bring their specimens for disposal ; and in 

 this way most of the species found in British and Native 

 Sikkim and the adjoining parts of Bhotan, Tibet, and Nepal, 

 from the level of the plains up to 18,000 or 19,000 feet, are 

 or will be labelled " Darjiling " {cf. Proc. Zool. Soc. 1859, 

 pp. 251-253), though they may come from districts belong- 

 ing to two perfectly distinct zoological regions including three 

 subregions — the Mongolian, the Himalo-Chinese, and the 

 Indian {cf. Elwes on the Geographical Distribution of Asiatic 

 Birds, in P. Z. S. 1873, p. 657, and Hodgson, in Journ. 

 As. Soc. Bengal, 1835). These divisions are most impor- 

 tant, as, with some knowledge of their characteristics, many 

 facts in distribution are easily explained which would other- 

 wise be inexplicable. Dr. Lidderdale, so far as I am aware, 

 never ti'avelled in the interior of Sikkim, but, except one 

 season at Buxa in Bhotan, spent his time at Darjiling and 

 its immediate neighbourhood. 



Argynnis gemmata is, with little doubt, a Palsearctic form 

 most nearly allied to A. 2^ales, and is an inhabitant of the 

 higher, drier regions of the interior of Sikkim, near the Tibet 

 frontier. I am nearly sure that I took it myself, in August 

 1870, near the Yakla Pass, at 13,000 feet elevation ; but 

 the specimen, with many more, was destroyed by damp. 

 Two years ago I got it again from the late Mr. Mandelli, 

 collected by a native in the same district ; and, though it may 

 straggle along the Chola range towards British Sikkim, I 

 doubt its occurring below 10,000 feet. Its occurrence in North- 

 east Kumaon, for so one must, I suppose, interpret the vague 

 term " between Nepal and Tibet" (though that terra would 

 equally well apply to native Sikkim if one had any reason to 

 suppose that Charlton had ever been there), would then be 

 perfectly natural and even to be expected ; for though, in the 

 case of birds, plants, and butterflies, the species found in the 

 middle zone of elevation in Sikkim are mostly either peculiar 

 or represented in the north-west Himalaya by allied forms, 

 yet the alpine species are very often identical. The general 

 terms Tibet and Chinese Tartary, so often given by writers 

 as localities for species, should not be used if possible. Tibet 

 is a country of enormous extent, of which only the frontier 

 in two or three spots has been visited by naturalists, though 

 Prejvalsky has recently penetrated the nortli-east for some 



