1881.] OF AMURLAND, NORTH CHINA, AND JAPAN. 857 



The materials at liand for this purpose were the extensive collections 

 formed by Messrs. Jonas, Pr3'er, and Fenton in Japan, nearlj' com- 

 plete series of whicli, received through Mr. Janson, are in Mr. God- 

 man's and my own collections. I also received from Dr. Staudinger 

 a nearly complete series of the Amurland Butterflies collected by 

 Christoph ; and from Askold I had a majority of the species collected 

 by Jankowsky. In Mr. Godman's collection are also a number of 

 rare species from Amurland. I have further consulted, as far as my 

 time and opportunities allowed, the British-Museum and Hewitson 

 collections. Lastly, and most important of all, I had through Dr. 

 Staudinger's kindness an opportunity of comparing most of the 

 doubtful Japanese forms with specimens in his unrivalled collection, 

 which contains long series of nearly all the species known in Amur- 

 land. I do not propose, however, to treat of these in detail, as 

 I hope that they may be shortly monographed in a thorough and 

 complete manner by Dr. Staudinger himself. 



The large number of new species which have been recently de- 

 scribed from Japan by Mr. Butler, would no doubt lead one to suppose 

 that the fauna of that country was an extremely peculiar one. Know- 

 ing beforehand that the birds and plants of Japan have a very close 

 affinity with those of Eastern Asia and Europe, I was not surprised 

 to find that many of these new species were really only varieties 

 of well-known European insects ; and the more 1 studied them, the 

 more convinced I became that a better knowledge of the Japanese 

 Butterflies will confirm my views. Many Japanese insects which at 

 first seemed distinct, proved, on comparison with a really fine Palse- 

 arctic collection, which unfortunately does not exist in England, to be 

 at best local forms of them ; and the remarkable variations which exist 

 among them tend to prove this. It is, however, as yet impossible 

 to speak with certainty about many of these species, which have been 

 described from single, faded, and imperfect specimens, or even in some 

 cases from drawings ; and until the distribution, variations, and con- 

 ditions of life under which these varieties are produced have been 

 studied on the spot by a competent naturalist well acquainted with 

 the Palsearctic Lepidoptera, any conclusions oji the question must be 

 doubtful. The time has gone by when species could be described 

 wholesale without comparison with the allied forms in neighbouring 

 regions ; and for this reason I venture to think that such bare 

 descriptions as have been published in various periodicals are not 

 calculated to advance scientific knowledge. 



The literature of the Lepidoptera of these countries is extremely 

 scattered and imperfect: with the exception of Bremer's and Mene- 

 tries's lists of the Lepidoptera of Amurland, no extensive papers 

 have been published ; and at the time these papers were written 

 Japanese Lepidoptera were unknown. 



The most important papers are as follows : — 



Bremer & Grey. Beitriige zur Schmetterlings-Fauna der nord- 

 lichen China. St. Petersburg, 1853. 



Contains a list of species collected near Pekin by Tatarinoff 



