30 
NOTES ON INDIAN BUTTERFLIES. 
BY 
LiEvutT.-CotoneL W. H. Evans, D.S.O., R.E., F.Z.8., F.E.S. 
(Continued from Vol. XXVII, page 93.) 
29. Bethune Baker in T. E. S. 1918 has issued a revision of the genus 
Tarucus based on the genitalia. He finds that not only are most of the theo- 
phrastus like forms described by Moore and Butler good species, but that cer- 
tain additional species exist in India. The following are confirmed as species : 
theophrastus, F.; nara, Koll.; venosus, M.; callinara, But.; extricatus, But.; altera- 
tus, M. The following are described asnew: callinara nigra from Karachi, 
Cutch and Campbellpore ; bengalensis described from an unique male from 
Calcutta and said to be very like the author’s mediterranee from Palestine and 
Algeria. ananda, DeN., hitherto placed in Castalius, is removed te Tarucus 
and a new species dharta, is described from a pair from Darjeeling, as differing 
from ananda in being smaller, markings more separated below,. female with a 
good deal of blue above and not all brown as ananda, plinius, F., is now-a- 
days considered to belong to the genus Syntarucus. 
Mr. Bethune Baker states that his studies have caused him to reconsider his 
previous conclusions as to what constitutes a species; he does not, however, 
enlarge on this point. I personally think that, as far as the Indian region is 
concerned, we have only one theophrastus like species, but that it is exceedingly 
susceptible to local influences and that any change in the facies may be corre- 
lated with a change in the genitalia. I have no doubt that if someone studied 
Terias hecabe, he could prove to his own satisfaction that the name comprised 
numerous species. Even Colonel Swinhoe, who is our great exponent of the 
theory that every variety should rank as a species, fights shy now and then of the 
school that rely solely on genitalia examinations—e.g., his treatment of the 
genus T'apena in Lepidoptera Indica, The whole question is very intricate and, 
as an amateur, J] am diffident about writing on the subject at all. My own 
studies have tended to prove that members of the same species from widely 
separated localities always show differences in their genitalia; whether such 
differences would constitute a bar to free interbreeding, it is impossible to 
say off hand and practically impossible ever to prove; to me it seems 
best to treat such differences as racial rather than as specific, though 
after the lapse of time their specific value may become established. T. theo- 
phrastus, however, presents a somewhat different problem; here we have, 
according to Bethune Baker, a number of different species flourishing in the 
same area. I have caught the species commonly at Jabalpur and Rawalpindi 
and more rarely at several other places. I quite understand that the specimens 
caught in different localities or obtained in the same locality at different sea- 
sons are likely to differ and I know that they do differ, but I do not believe that 
on the same day and in the same place I could capture more than one theo- 
phrastus like species. I have caught a venosus form concurrently with a nara 
form, but no one will persuade me that they were more than ordinary varieties. 
If, however, two series caught at the same season and in the same locality 
were shown to differ materially in the genitalia, I might be inclined to recon- 
sider my opinion; I say “ might ” advisedly, since other factors have to be 
taken into consideration, e.g., a brood produced from a food plant other than the 
normal one might produce an incipient species, which under natural conditions 
would soon be swamped by the prevailing form. Iremember at Jabalpur one day 
catching a number of dwarf Tarucus plinius along with the normal form; I wili 
aot venture to say how they were produced, but it never occurred to me that 
