194 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. IX. 



REVIEW. 

 BUTTERFLIES FROM CHINA, JAPAN AND COREA.* 



Our knowledge of the butterflies of Eastern Asia has been greatly 

 added to by this work by Mr. J. H. Leech, which has been appearing 

 in parts during the past three years and has been concluded with very 

 praiseworthy expedition. The paper and type are excellent, while the 

 plates are, both for accuracy and execution, far and away the best that 

 we have seen in a similar work. In his arrangement, Mr. Leech has 

 adopted that followed in the " Butterflies of India " and ll Lepidoptera 

 Indica" and we are glad to see has not considered it necessary to 

 strike out a line for himself. We do not quite understand why 

 Mr. Leech should adopt Mr. Moore's subdivisions of Euplcea and 

 Danais as generic, while he entirely ignores the same author's subdivi- 

 sions of Mycalesis and Lethe, and does not apparently consider them 

 even of subgeneric value. We do not quite agree with him here and 

 think the correct way to treat all the subdivisions in these genera is as 

 subgenera ; since by ignoring them altogether a great help to 

 identification is lost, while by admitting them as generic it is implied 

 that the different species are much less closely allied to one another 

 than is really the case. In the case of Ypthima we are quite at one 

 with Mr. Leech — that the various genera into which it has been split 

 are not of sufficient importance to be treated even as subgenera. 



We think Mr. Leech has certainly gone wrong in the genus 

 Melanitis. He admits Melanitis aswa^ Moore, as distinct from M. leda^ 

 (auctorum, nee Linnaeus), but treats M. beta, Moore, not as the dry-season 

 form of M. aswa but as "a seasonal form of M. leda in the district 

 under consideration." However, since both M. bela and M. asiva as they 

 occur in China are practically inseparable from the forms found in 

 India, where they are without doubt seasonal forms of one and the 

 same species, it is quite certain that they are also forms of one species 

 in China. The true M. ismene, Cramer, with its rainy-season form 

 M. determinate!,) Butler (= leda auct.), also occurs in Japan and China, 

 though this is not clearly shown in Mr. Leech's book. Mr. Leech is no 

 doubt quite right in his suggestion that the Melanitis leda, var. a of 



* Butterflies from China, Japan and Corea. By John Henry Leech, B. A., F.L. S., P. Z. S., 

 F. E. S., &c. R. H. Porter, 18, Prince's Street, Cavendish Square, London, W., 1892-94. 



