AMBLTPODIA GKOTJP OF THE LYC^NID^. 17 



the apex being only dark dots ; the ground-colour is darker at the apex and anal angle. 

 Secondaries with a similar broad row of confluent spots darkly edged, beyond which 

 edging there is a whitish diffused internal and external scaling ; lobe reddish ; the lobe 

 is very well developed and adjoins a short stout tail ; marginal area dark. 



2 . Upperside : both wings brown, primaries with a good-sized pale azure patch, 

 secondaries with the azure patch very much reduced in size. Underside : both wings 

 ochreous grey, with the oblique stripe passing through both wings, the ground-colour 

 being rather darker up to the base ; the other markings as in the male, but approaching 

 evanescence. 



This species is most variable, individuals from every island apparently presenting 

 minor differences which it would be absurd to name. A form found in Nias has the 

 female of the same blue colour as the male, an almost unicolorous dark underside 

 with the oblique stripe as usual, but the lobe has a large velvety-black spot with two 

 or three black marginal spots beyond, all the spots being broadly encircled with 

 glaucous : this form I also have before me from Borneo, but the underside is paler. 

 A form found in several of the Philippine Islands has the male with a pale violet 

 patch on the upperside, while the female is not quite so blue as in the type-species, 

 but the underside is strongly tinged with olive-green or olive-brown and is also almost 

 unicolorous. Specimens of this form occasionally present a trace of the black spots at 

 the anal angle. 



I have no doubt at all that A. taooana Moore is merely a bright specimen of this 

 species, the blue colour of which varies a good deal. The width of the black border 

 not only varies a good deal in the female but in the males also. The clasps of the 

 prehensores are very peculiar, being small for the size of the insect, but the extremities 

 are strongly serrate and produced upwards into a long straight extension and attached 

 to the laterals by a fine covering of thin chitine ; the penis is short and stout. 



Amblypodia andeksomi Moore. 



Amblypodia andersonii Moore, Journ. A. S. B. vol. liii. pt.2, p. 43 (1884) ; id. Journ. Linn. Soc. Lond., 

 Zool. vol. xxi. p. 44, pi. iv. fig. 4, £ (1886) ; de Niceville, Butt. Ind. vol. hi. p. 211 (1890). 



Hab. Sampu ; Sullivan Island, Mergui (January). 



Expanse, <y , T75 inches (de Niceville). 



" <s smaller than A. taooana Moore. Upperside : both wings of a similar tint of 

 ultramarine-blue, with much narrower marginal border. Underside : both wings much 

 darker coloured, but similarly marked " (Moore, I. c). The unique type of this species 

 is in the Indian Museum at Calcutta. De Niceville says that the blue colour is rich and 

 beautiful, and is unlike anything else in the genus, except that he has one specimen of 

 the true A. narada Horsfiekl with which it entirely agrees. The probability is that 

 this therefore is only an aberration of Horsfield's insect. I keep them separate, as I 

 have been unable to see the type. 



vol. xvn. — part i. No. 3. — August, 1903. D 



