198 THE ENTdMOLOGIST. 



butterflies scarce. This may be an extreme example, but it is 

 possible to see as many butterflies in the Sikkim Himalayas in 

 the course of twelve hours as in Ceylon during a stay of twelve 

 months, if alone we except those wonderful migratory hosts 

 (usually composed of three or four species only) which periodi- 

 cally make their appearance, and vanish completely out of sight 

 a day or two afterwards. Anyhow, the singular fact remains that 

 butterflies are by far more plentiful in species and conspicuous 

 in individuals, in certain localities in the Himalayas, than is the 

 case in any other portion of the Eastern Hemisphere, inside the 

 Tropics or without, and this applies with equal force to the Papi- 

 lionidse. Indeed, the very first butterfly that I espied on the 

 ever-memorable occasion of my premier journey up the " Hills " 

 by the diminutive train of the Darjeeling-Himalayan Eailway 

 from Siliguri was a brilliant, bounding, specimen of Achillides 

 paris, this pre-eminently characteristic and extremely exquisite 

 group of green-and-blue- spotted, spoon-tailed. Oriental Papilios 

 being represented by no fewer than four superb species in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of Darjeeling (an additional species 

 occurring in the Simla district), where they are popularly known 

 to Indo-European and Eurasian residents by the appropriate 

 cognomen of "Peacocks." 



The majority of the tropical Himalayan Papilionidse, in- 

 cluding a couple of gigantic Oniithoptera, are generally of a 

 larger average size than anywhere else ; especially is this the 

 case in extreme wet season forms which fly during the maximum 

 phase of the south-west monsoon. Examples of these, I believe, 

 exceed the dimensions of the same species (with one or two 

 exceptions) elsewhere. These splendid insects, therefore, to- 

 gether with several species of immense silk-moths, the latter 

 numbering in their ranks the largest species of Heterocera in 

 the whole world, Attacus edivardsi, besides other magnificent 

 species, provide pre-eminently suitable symbolical lepidoptero- 

 logical representatives of the most elevated and stupendous 

 mountain system upon this terrestrial sphere. To the student 

 of zoogeographical and phytogeographical distribution there is 

 no more interesting field for investigation and inquiry than that 

 supplied by the Himalayas, which provide in a small compass a 

 complete compendium of all the zoogeographical and phyto- 

 geographical zones situated upon the horizontal isotherms of the 

 earth. This is the case at least with the single exception of the 

 equatorial, characterised by its cocoanut palms, which I have 

 not seen growing further north than in the neighbourhood of 

 the Ganges near Calcutta, where it is crossed by the Tropic of 

 Cancer. All the other climatal belts are represented between 

 thence and the Arctic Piegions with characteristic fauna and 

 flora to correspond. 



Although, as I have already alluded to the fact, the Sikkim 



