500 
BUTTERFLY COLLECTING IN INDIA. 
Br 
Lr.-Cotonet W. H. EvAns., D.S.0., R.E., F.ZS., FES. 
(With 9 Text Figures.) 
1. Ido not think that anyone, who has taken the trouble to look, can fail te 
be impressed by the splendour of the butterflies of India. There are many, who 
would like to study them further, but very few proceed beyond mere admiration, 
chiefiy because of the difficulties involved in tollowing a pursuit without a guide. 
It is the purpose of this article to draw attention to the variety of interests that 
underlie the hobby of butterfly collecting and to explain how these beautiful 
insects may be captured and preserved. 1 think it was A. R. Wallace who wrote 
somewher> that the story of evolution is written on the wings of butterflies and 
I believe that. when the study of zoology can be correlated with the studies of geo- 
logy. geography and botany by a superman of the calibre of Darwin, the mystery 
of evolution will be solved. Before the solution can possibly -be reached, and it 
will not be in our generation, a mass of observation work has to be done. The 
professional zoologist ignores the butterflies and devotes himself either to the 
lesser known groups or to such as have a definite economic value ; he admittedly 
leaves butterflies to the amateur and so here is a field in which the amateur, 
who happens to be an observant student of nature, can help on the attainment 
of knowledge. 
2. The Indian Empire, wherein for zoological purposes are included Ceylon 
and Burma, is probably the most ideal country in the world for pursuing the study 
of butterflies. It offers the extremes of heat and cold, of dampness and dryness, 
of desert and rank jungle, islands and continental areas, an ever-varying vegeta- 
tion and in many parts sharply marked seasons, while its geological history is 
most interesting. For faunistic purposes the world is divided into the American. 
African, Palzarctic and Oriental regions. With the American region we are not 
concerned. With the African region we have a connecting link through Balu- 
chistan, but in former years the connection must have been a much more impor- 
tant one, since there are a number of genera which we share with Africa. The 
Palzarctic region comprises Europe, the Mediterranean littoral of Africa, Western 
and Northern Asia. As far as we are concerned this region is divided into the 
European sub-region, which embraces Western Asia and reaches us through 
Baluchistan ; the Central Asian sub-region, reaching Chitral and to a less extent 
the N. W. Himalayas ; the Chinese sub-region, which enters the Indian empire 
between Sikkim and Northen Burma. The Oriental region comprises the 
Australian and the Indo-Malayan sub-regions and the latter is divisable into 
the South Indian (including Ceylon) and the Malayan, covering all Lower Burma ; 
it must be remembered that the mighty Himalayas are mere children on the face 
of the globe and only possess a bastard fauna made up of immigrants from other 
far older areas. The Indian area, as defined at the beginning of this paragraph, 
can be divided for convenience into the following reasonably well defined sub- 
areas :— 
A. Ceylon, closely allied to South India, but, being an island, it has a 
number of forms peculiar to itself. 
B. South India, embracing the Madras and Bombay presidencies, ex- 
cluding Sind, but stretching up into the Central Provinces and Bengal. 
C. Baluchistan and Sind (more or less), possessing an almost entirely — 
Palzarctic fauna and showing little or no connection with the fauna proper 
of India. 
