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NOTE ON SOME SPECIES OF COMAS FOUND IN LADAK. 



By H. J, Elwes, F.R.S. 



[Mead before the Bombay Natural History Society on 6th Dec, 1897.) 



In a small collection of butterflies recently made by Mr. J. C. White, 

 C.E., Political Officer, Sikkim, which were evidently taken at some 

 great elevation on or near the Tibet-Sikkim frontier, were a pair of a 

 small Colias which I believe to be very closely allied to, if not identical 

 with, Colias stoliczkanus, Moore, which was described from specimens 

 collected north of Chang-la, 17,000 feet, Ladak. I have one of the 

 original specimens of this species from Stoliczka's collection given to me 

 many years ago by Baron Felder, and a number of others taken on the 

 Khardong Pass, 15,000 to 17,000 feet in August, 1889, by McArthur. 

 1 had long been disposed to consider these as a dwarf pale form of 

 C. eogene, Felder, of which I have many specimens from various parts 

 of the N.-W. Himalaya, Zogi-la Pass, Kashmir, 11,300 feet 

 [de Nkiville) ; Shigri, Lahoul, August, 1884,13,000 feet (Grahame 

 Young) ; Baralacha, Lahoul, August, 1888 (McArthur) ; Skoro-la, 

 Baltistan, July, 1887 (Leech); besides several pairs from Karategin and 

 Hunza in the Pamirs (Groum Grshimailo). These specimens vary 

 considerably in size and brilliancy of colour, especially in the female sex, 

 some of which are of a very bright deep pink with very broad dark 

 borders, and others are pale dull pink or orange. On examining the 

 very fine series of both these species in Mr. Leech's collection, taken by 

 himself and McArthur in various parts of Ladak, I find undoubted 

 specimens of C. eogene also taken at the Khardong Pass by McArthur, 

 and though some of the specimens appear intermediate in size and 

 colour between the two, so that I thought they might be hybrids, yet I am 

 now inclined to believe that C. stoliczkanus may be looked upon as a 

 good and distinct species. The best means I know of distinguishing 

 the two species is the underside, which in C. stoliczkanus has the inner 

 area of the hindwing in both sexes of a darker green colour, and a sub- 

 marginal band of dark spots, better defined and more conspicuous than 

 in C. eogene. The pair from Sikkim agree perfectly on the underside with 

 those from Ladak, but the male shows on the black margin of both wings 

 above some indication of pale spots as in the female. In Mr. Leech's 

 collection I also found four males and five females of a Colias which 



