1891.] THE NAGA AND KAREN HILLS AND PERAK. 2G7 



Ypthima methora. (Plate XXVII. fig. 1, J .) 



Ypthlma methora. Hew. Trans. Ent. Soc. ser. 3, ii. p. 291, t. xviii. 

 20, 21 § (1864) ; Elwes, op. cit. 1888, p. 32G ; de Nicev. J. A. S. B. 

 vol. Iv. pt. ii. p. 233 (1887). 



In writing of this species only two years ago I endeavoured to 

 show how the form which I believed to be identical with Hewitson's 

 species might be distinguished in Sikkim from Y. sakra, Moore, and 

 from Y. philomela, Hiibn., with which I thought it had been con- 

 fused by Marshall and de Niceville. 



I have now received numerous specimens of three forms of 

 Ypthima, collected by Doherty in Eastern Pegu at 2000 feet eleva- 

 tion and upwards, which I find it difficult to name with certainty. 

 The difficulty arises from the fact that the types of Y. methora in 

 Hewitson's collection are females, and therefore we are unable to say 

 whether it belongs to the grouj) i.i which the male is characterized 

 by the presence of a sexual mark or patch of raised scales on the 

 upperside of the fore wing, as seen in Y. philomela and Y. motschulsJaji, 

 or whether it is, as I supposed, more nearly allied to Y. sakra, in which 

 there is no sexual mark. 



Of the three forms now in question from Burmah, one is what is 

 spoken of as Y. methora by Marshall and de Niceville in Butt. Ind. 

 i. p. 215, of which Y. marshalli, Butl., is the cold-weather form, 

 with minute ocelli, and which has been bred from Y. philomela at 

 Calcutta by de Niceville (e/. J. A. S. B. Iv. pt. ii. 1886, p. 231). 



The male has a more or less indistinct sexual patch, which in 

 some quite fresh specimens is hardly if at all visible, and which makes 

 nie doubt the propriety of using this as a character on which the 

 genus can be divided into groups \ The ocelli are constant in 

 number and position but variiible in size. The underside is crossed 

 by three distinct bands. 



The second form is like it but smaller, with the inner and 

 middle bands on the underside almost obsolete, and but for the 

 faintness or absence of the sexual patch would, without any hesita- 

 tion, be called Y. philomela. 



The third is much larger, with larger ocelli, and agrees with what 

 I spoke of as the rainy-season brood of Y. methora in my Sikkim Cata- 

 logue, which I have from Sikkim, Bhutan, the Khasia and Naga 

 Hills, except that the underside is much paler and the ocelli even 

 more prominent, especially the second one on the hind wing above. 

 This is the more remarkable because the specimens appear to have 

 been taken at a time, March and April, when the form with minute 



1 Since writing this I have seen very large numbers of Y'pthimcs in Mr. 

 Leecli's collection from China, which tend to confirm my opinion that the so- 

 called sex-mark is an inconstant character. Some of these are Y. moischulskyi, 

 which normally has a well-defined sex-mark, but in others from the same 

 locality this is faint or altogether wanting, and the variation in size and in the 

 striation of the underside is so great that one cannot tell whether they belong 

 to one or more species. Seasonal dimorphism does not seem to occur in China 

 in this genus or in Mycalesis to anything like the same extent as in India, 

 which is only to be expected when we know how dilTerent are the seasons. 



