218 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY S0CLET7, 1892. 



47. Gomalia elema. A butterfly taken at Haitlialhim, SOtli 

 December, 1884, was identified by Mr. Butler as this species — it was 

 *' a Singleton." I do not know where the original description of 

 this species is to be found. 



The above exhausts my list of captures. There are four butter- 

 flies, however, that there is fairly good ground for assuming may be 

 found in the neighbourhood, but acting on the principle of accepting 

 only that which is caught and identified by a competent entomolo- 

 gist as history, while that which is seen or is unidentified remains 

 a mystery, leads me not to include them in my list. 



The reputed species are as follows : — 



I found these two species in the 



i. A lycgenid— C«si!a/ws sp.? l^o^ of a brother-collector: he 

 ii. A pierid — Teracolus sp. stated that he had taken both 



J species at Haithalhim, but as he 

 did not label his specimens, and moreover had Indian, Abyssinian, 

 and Aden insects jumbled up in this box together, I declined to 

 accept the locality. 



iii. A Papilio, described as being like the Indian P. eritJionius. 



iv. A hesperid — Ismene sp.? Of the existence of this butterfly 

 there is " no possible probable shadow of doubt. " I met with 

 it on several occasions, but it so persistently avoided my net 

 that at length I took to calling it the "Phantom skipper.'^ It 

 was a large purple skipper, quite unlike anything I have seen 

 elsewhere. Dr. Hay, at that time Port Surgeon, and who was 

 interested in entomology, told me that he once got one of these 

 skippers under his hat, but did not succeed in boxing it. I 

 also heard of it from Mr. Chevalier and other employes of 

 the Eastern Telegraph Co. Though I do not expect that 

 many species will be added to my list from Aden itself, still (as 

 I never visited Lahej between April and December, nor had I a 

 chance of visiting the mountains inland, nor the neighbourhood of 

 Shugra) I am sure that several species remain to be added from the 

 vicinity, and I hope that somebody will carry on investigations into 

 the entomology of the district, so that we may some day have a 

 tolerably complete list of the Rhopalocera of Southern Arabia. 



