C94 



A NOTE ON THE ZOOLOGICAL DIVISIONS OF SIKHIM. 

 By H. J. Elwes, f.r.s. 



{Read before the Bombay Natural History Society on June l&th, 1898). 



In Mr. Dudgeon's Catalogue of the Heterocera of Sikhim to which 

 some notes of mine are added, I find he has adopted from Dr. Wad dell 

 in the Gazetteer of Sikhim, what 1 consider to be a very unnatural and 

 misleading zoological sub-division of that part of the Himalayas. 

 In my Catalogue of the Butterflies of Sikhim, published in the 

 Transactions of the Entomological Society of London for 1888, pages 

 269-465, I made the observations quoted below, which have probably 

 been overlooked by Mr. Dudgeon, but as no one has, in the nineteen 

 years which have elapsed since I first wrote on the subject, so far as 

 I know, attempted to controvert those views, I think that if Mr. 

 Dudgeon does not agree to their being applicable to Moths as they are 

 to Mammals, Birds and Butterflies he should give his reasons. Now 

 that the genera of Indian Heterocera — which, when I wrote, were in a 

 state of absolute chaos — are to some extent put on a sound basis by 

 Sir G. Hampson, it would be possible to analyse them, in order to see how 

 far their geographical distribution falls into line with that of other orders. 



" The Eastern Himalayas have been divided by Hodgson (see 

 "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for 1835) into three zones 

 " of elevation , each of which has a very distinct fauna and flora ; 

 " and, when writing on the distribution of Asiatic birds (Proc. Zool. 

 " Soc, 1873, p. 65), I showed that these three zones are perfectly 

 4 ' characteristic of three different zoological provinces. The lower or 

 " tropical zone extending up to about 5,000 feet, which is inhabited 

 " by plants, birds and insects characteristic of the Indo-Malay region. 

 " The middle or temperate zone from 5,000 up to about 10 or 12,000 

 " feet, which, though mostly of a subtropical character, is largely 

 il peopled by birds, plants, and insects peculiar to the mountainous 

 " region extending from Kashmir to Sumatra and Formosa, which 

 " I then christened the Himalo-Ohinese subregion. Thirdly, the 

 " alpine zone, above 12,000 feet, which belongs to and is inhabited 

 " by forms peculiar to or characteristic of the Palsearctic region." 



" But, though the distribution of Lepidoptera is very similar to that 

 i' ^ birds, yet many of the genera as at present recognised are much 



