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XXI. The Butterflies of Malacca*. By Arthur Gardiner Butler, F.L.S., F.Z.S., 

 Senior Assistant in the Zoological Department,, British Museum. 



(Plates LXVIIL, LXIX.) 



Eead December 21st, 1876. 



J. HE generosity of Captain Stackhouse Pinwill, who has presented to the British 

 Museum the whole of the Lepidoptera collected by himself during some years' residence 

 in Malacca and Penang, has enabled me to study (with, I trust, some degree of profit to 

 others as well as to myself) the Lepidopterous fauna of the Malayan peninsula. As I 

 was obliged to go over the whole of the species hitherto recorded from Malaysia, and as 

 Captain Pinwill's collection is the most complete one hitherto received from the penin- 

 sula, I determined not to lose the present opportunity of making a complete list of the 

 Butterflies as yet known to occur at Malacca, comparing them at the same time, by means 

 of a table, with the species hitherto received from India, China, Siam, and the islands 

 to the south of the peninsula. 



Of the 258 species now registered from Malacca, 36 appear to be endemic; of the 

 remainder rather more than a fourth occur either at Assam or Nepal, more than a 

 seventh at Moulmein, less than a seventh at Ceylon, nearly two fifths, (apparently) in 

 the island of Penang, about two elevenths at Singapore, about three sevenths in Borneo, 

 about three sixteenths in Sumatra, more than a third in Java, about two thirteenths in 

 Siam, rather more than a tenth in China, two species in the New Hebrides, and six in 

 Australia. We see therefore that, with the exception of the last-mentioned eight 

 species, the Butterflies of Malacca are limited to the Indian Eegion ; there are, however, 

 several forms occurring in the Australian Eegion which some Lepidopterists would not 

 regard as specifically distinct, such as the various allied forms of Danais, Melanitis, 

 Mycalesis, Boleschallia, Neptis, Biadema, Cynthia, Junonia, Bampides, Amblypodia, 

 Catopsilia, and Bapilio. All of these are, nevertheless, characterized by slight but con- 

 stant differences, and consequently have a right to be regarded as distinct species. 



It appears to me to be important to those who desire conscientiously to study the 

 geographical distribution of animals, to discriminate between even the most nearly allied 

 species. I believe that few things have more retarded zoological geography than the 

 reckless association together of so-called "local varieties " under the same specific name. 

 I will cite an instance in illustration of what I mean. Some Lepidopterists still assert 

 that Biadema bolina ranges from Northern India to New Zealand, whereas that species 

 does not occur outside the Indian Eegion. Allied forms, indeed, are common throughout 

 the Moluccas, Australia, and the South Pacific ; and one of them (B. nerina), strange 



* Two of the new species mentioned in the present paper, and an abstract of the whole, have already appeared in 

 the Society's Journal (Zool. vol. xiii. p. 115 and p. 196 respectively). 



SECOND SERIES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. I. 4 B 



