1886.] certain Calcutta Species of Satyrinoe. 235 



on January 20th from the other. Two larvae died, having shrivelled 

 up in the act of turning, possibly in consequence of the atmosphere 

 of the glass jar in which 1 bred them not being sufficiently moist, 

 for in nature these animals must get heavily drenched with dew every 

 night. All these batterflies bred from eggs laid by Y. philomela proved 

 to be true Y. maishallii. I may add that Captain Sage, who kept a 

 careful register of his captures from day to day, first observed " wild" 

 specimens of Y. marshallii on November 18th, having for months before 

 caught Y. philomela only. 



3. Mtcalesis MiNEUS, Linnaeus. PL XII, Fig, 3. 



The synonymy of this species when it comes to be fully set down (and 

 unfortunately I do not possess the necessary material from extra- Indian 

 sources to attempt the task) will be stupendous. In India this species 

 is certainly represented by mineus, Linnaeus ; drusia, Cramer ; polydecta, 

 Cramer ; justina, Cramer ; visala, Moore ; and indistans, Moore ; the 

 first four species representing ocellated forms, the last two non-ocellated 

 forms. 



Males of typical M. mineus can at once be distinguished by an 

 ochreous or pale golden elongated patch on the underside of the fore- 

 wing near the base of the inner margin of closely-packed scales placed 

 on either side of the submedian nervure near its middle, which patch 

 is widely surrounded by an area of shining very closely-packed darker 

 scales ; a somewhat similar patch is also present on the upperside of the 

 hind wing near the base of the first subcostal nervule. This patch is also 

 found in typical M. indistans (and it is needless to state that it occurs 

 also in M. visala, which is but a slight local variety of the latter form). 

 In typical M. hlasius and in its probably non-ocellated form M. perseus, 

 these patches are very much smaller and black. Where these patches 

 are well-marked and the characteristic markings occur with them, these 

 two species, mineus and hlasius, can be at once distinguished. But the 

 identification of large series of specimens of this group of Mycalesis 

 from various parts of India is complicated by this structural character 

 appearing to be by no means constant, and moreover by the large yellow 

 patch being sometimes associated ^ith the markings of M. hlasius and 

 M. perseus, and the small black patch with those of M. mineus ; so that 

 when an attempt is made to sort them into separate species by one 

 character, an unnatural result is obtained. I wish here only to draw 

 attention to these circumstances. My own belief is that hybridisation 

 takes place extensively. In Calcutta I have not as yet met with 

 any of these puzzling specimens, but such seem to occur commonly 

 in other parts of India. Local breeding experiments should be carried 

 out to decide the question. 



