72 Distribution of Moths of the Sub-family Bistoninee. 



a stop when no more lands remained for occupation, and settled 

 in what it seized as the fine species B. contectaria. 



Still, the whole of the migratory wave did not concentrate 

 in India, a strong contingent came down through Annam and 

 Siam and surged over lands like those uniting Formosa to the 

 mainland, long since buried beneath the waves, passing as a 

 narrow stream into Java to be found there yet as the two 

 insects B. albescens and B. arenosa. This localisation in 

 Java appears very curious but, nevertheless, is not more 

 wonderful than the many problems of discontinuity with which 

 the East Indian area teems. Possibly, sooner or later, the 

 species will turn up in Borneo and Sumatra but up to the 

 present they have not been signalled there. 



Exactly as Blepharoctenia developed from Buzura, so Am- 

 raica appeared ; in its case the despised antennal pectinations 

 not being shed by equal losses on both sides, but by the total 

 disappearance of those on one side. How this came about is 

 here of little importance, but what does affect us now is the 

 fact that, like its congeners amongst the Buzurce, east and 

 west it advanced but evidencing a liking for temperate habitats, 

 Japan being reached long ere its separation from China and 

 Corea happened. Similarly, through passes of the lower 

 Himalayas of its colonising days, it occupied the wooded 

 foothills. In the end we know that the mountains of Northern 

 India thrust their heads higher into the clouds and many 

 parts of Tibet lost their woodlands ; where once the silva of 

 temperate regions reigned dwell now only Junipers and miser- 

 able willows and poplars, and so, many insects vanished. 

 Amraica was cut in two ; divergence to some extent ensued, 

 and we obtain now what we regard as representative species, 

 Amraica recur saria in India, and A. superans in Corea, China 

 and Japan. 



Returning for a moment to Eubyjodonta, it will not detain 

 us long ; like many other active genera, soon after their birth, 

 it had a period of great productive energy and gave rapidly, 

 by slight variations, the four species E. emarginata, E. quercii, 

 E. clorinda and E. erilda which have been content with their 

 original home. 



At this juncture it behoves us to take up the alternative 

 scheme propounded as a mode of discovering which of the 

 Buzura subgenera was to be considered the oldest. Which 

 has led us further afield, and which has demanded geographical 

 conditions furthest removed from those of our times ? The 

 answer can only be the sub-genus Buzura proper, the very 

 genus deemed from morphological standpoints to be of earlier 

 origin. Agreement between the indications of structure and 

 those of distribution is therefore perfect. 

 (To be continued) 



Naturalist, 



