JOURNAL 



ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL. 



Part Il.-NATURAL SCIENCE. 

 No. II.— 1891. 



V. — The Butterflies of Sumba and Samhawa, with some account of the 

 Island of Sumba. — By WiLLlAM Dohbuty, Cincinnati, JJ. 8. A, Com- 

 municated by the Natural Histoey Secretary. 



[Received April 9th :— Eead May 6th, 1891,] 



(With Plate II.) 



The chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, extending from Java east- 

 wards to Timor Lant and N^ew Guinea, is of great interest from many 

 points of view, but especially from the ethnologist's. For, whereas a 

 slight tincture of Muhammadan civilization, leading to the entire loss 

 of the native product, has made the people of the Malay Peninsula, 

 Sumatra, and Borneo the most uninteresting of all the sons of men, and 

 only the minutest differences distinguish the natives of Penang from 

 those Oi Macassar, fifteen hundred miles away, every little island east 

 of Java has an astonishing wealth of peculiarities. 



Taking the question of religion and government, Bali, the first, is 

 a densely inhabited island, the home of an ancient civilization. The 

 people are of the Hindu faith, the four original castes still prevail there 

 as they did in India in the time of Manu, and suttee, extinct every- 

 where else, still" flourishes. In Lombok, a Hindu aristocracy rules 

 a Muhammadan proletariat of a more recent and less pi"Qjiounced 

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