104 W. Doherty — A List of Butterflies tahen in Ktmiaon. [No. 2, 



butterflies of this region (which covers all India proper except the 

 Himalayas, Bengal, Malabar, and the forest-covered districts of the 

 Eastern Ghats and the Central Provinces) are usually of African genera, 

 and often of African species, e. g., Char axes fahius, YpJithima nareda 

 and Y. asterope, Apatura misippus, Junonia oenone and J. orithyia, 

 Hypanis ilithyia, Tariicus theophrastus, and Pieris mesentina. The next 

 reo-ion is that of the Tarai, the Bhabar (or dry Tarai), the foot-hills, 

 and the low valleys, reaching up to three thousand feet. Its fauna 

 is more or less tropical, and should rather be called Indian than 

 Himalayan, the genera being for the most part spread over wide areas 

 in the East. In Kumaon it is covered with forest containing a great 

 variety of trees. The next region, which may be called the Lower 

 Himalayan, extends from 3,000 to 7,000 feet, and is in Kumaon 

 covered with a thin and open growth of the ' chir ' pine (Finns 

 longifolia). Above this lies what I may call the Upper Himalayan 

 tract, extending from 7,000 to 10,000 feet, and clothed with a dense 

 forest of oaks, firs, and rhododendrons. These two regions contain near- 

 ly all the typical Himalayan forms. To the first belong many species 

 of Lethoj Ilerda, Yphthima, Mycalesis, Lihythea, Dodona, Ahisara, Neptis, 

 Athymay Symhrenthia, and a considerable variety of the Theclince. In. 

 the second such genera as Zephyr us (Thecla), Bhaphicera, Zophoessa, 

 and Aulocera abound. Above 10,000 feet one comes to a fauna chiefly 

 Palaearctic. My collecting in this region was a failure, but it seems to 

 me that there must be a difference between the butterflies of Darma and 

 Byans — Alpine valleys covered with great pine- woods and rich meadows 

 of heather and grasses — and those of the Chinese province of Ngari or 

 Hundes, a lofty and desert country with but a few inches of rainfall (in 

 June, July, and August), and hardly any vegetation, except on the banks 

 of streams and at the edge of the snow, the melting of which affords 

 moisture throughout the warmer months. 



These zoological zones are by no means well-defined, and some 

 species seem to set all laws of distribution at defiance. At Baghi north 

 of Simla, I have observed a Farnassius and a Oatopsilia alight on the 

 same flower. In Kumaon, where I have seen palms and pines growing 

 side by side, a troop of monkeys on a birch tree, and a flock of parrots 

 on a fir, similar contradictions occur. An Auloce^-a is common in the 

 Kali Valley down to 2,500 feet and even less ; I saw a straggling speci- 

 men of Colias fieldii at the same place ; and Fapilio machaon is common 

 at Bagheswar (3,000 feet) in the valley of the Sarju, and even at the cross- 

 ing of the Ramganga near Gangolihat a thousand feet lower still. On the 

 other hand, I caught Terias hecabe flying over Bireg Mountain at nearly 

 12,000 feet elevation. The largest range in elevation known to me is 



