118 LEPIDOPTEBA INDICA. 



TrPK. — M. Leda. 



The species of Melanitis are dimorphic. — The species of this genus have 

 two forms, the result of a wet sea.so?i-brood and of a drij-season brood occurring 

 within the year, and to Mr. L. de Niceville belongs the credit of having discovered 

 and proved the fact that the common Indian species, M. Ismene, is dimorphic, and 

 that the forms hitherto known as M. Leda and M. Ismene were only the wet and dry' 

 season broods of one species. 



The two forms in this genus differ, not only in the ocellated or non-ocellated 

 markings of the underside, as occurs in the species of the allied genera of 

 Mycalesis and Ypthiraa, but the outline of the wings of the specimens in 

 each brood, in Melanitis, also differ, especially in the males, the forewing in the 

 males of the wet-season brood being shorter, its exterior margin nearly even or with 

 but a very slight angle below the apex ; whereas in the males of the dry-season 

 brood, the forewing is subfalcate and has a more or less prolonged acute angle below 

 the apex ; and in the hindwing, also, of the wet-season brood the angle on middle of 

 the exterior margin is short and obtuse, but in the hindwing of the dry-season brood 

 this angle is also acute and prolonged. 



Further, the undersides of the dry-season or unocellated-brood are very variable, 

 and in their markings and tints of colour they harmonize so completely with the 

 coloration of decaying vegetation, that when settled amongst dead leaves and dried- 

 Tip grass, it is almost impossible to see them. 



MELANITIS ISMENE. 



Wet-Season Rrood (Plate 122, figs. 1, la, larva and pupa, 1, b, c, d, e, 5 ? ). 



Papilio Leda, Drury, Exot. Ins. i. pi. 15, figs. 5, 6, ? (1773). Cramer, Pap. Esot. iii. pi. 196, figs, c, 

 D (1780). (jiec LinncEUs).* 



Melanitis Leda, Fabricius, Syst. Gloss. (Illiger's Mag. vi. p. 282, 1807). Moore, Catal. Lep. Mus. 

 E. I. C. i. p. 222 (1857) ; id. Lep. Ceylon, i p. 15, pi. 10, figs. 1, a, b, ^ ? (1880). Butler (part) 

 Catal. Satyr. Brit. Mus. p. 1 (18G8) ; id. Catal. Fabr. Lep. B. M. p. 9 (1869). Distant, Rhop. 

 Malay, p. 41, pi. 4, fig. 10,^(1882). Marshall and de Xict'ville, Butt, of India, etc. i. p. 252 

 (1883). De Niceville, Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1886, p. 237, pi. 12, fig. 4, larva and pupa. 



Oreas M. Leda, Hiibner, Samml. Exot. Schmett. i. pi. 91, figs. 1, 2, ? (1806-16). 



Ilildo Leda, Hubner, Verz. bek. Sohmett. p. 56 (181G). 



Salijrus Leda (part) Godart, Enc. Mcth. ix. p. 478 (1819). 



Hlpparc/iia Leda, Ilorsfield, Catal. Lep. JIus. E. I. C. pi. 8, fig. 9, larva and pupa (1829). 



* The Pap. Leda, Linn. S. N. 1758, p. 474, is an Amboina species, quite distinct from the Indian. 

 See Butler, Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1885, p. vi. Linnseus' reference to Edwards' Birds, pi. 297, is not given 

 in the 1758 edition, but is erroneously added in tlie 1767 edit, of Syst. Nat. Edwards' figure, however, 

 represents the dry-season form of our Indian species. 



