1888.] L. de NIceville — New BiUterJUes from the Indian Region. 273 



X. — O71 neio or little-knoion Butterjlies from the Indian Region. 



By Lionel de Nice'yille, F. E. S., C. M. Z. S. 



[Received May 14tli ;— Read June 6th, 1888.] 



(With Plates XIII. and XIV.) 



Family NYMPHALID^. 



Subfamily Satyrin^. 



1. Mtcalesis malsarida, Butler. 



M. malsarida, Butler, Cat. Diurn. Lep. B, M., Satyridce, p. 134, n. 27, pi. iii, 

 fig. 14 (1868); id., Marshall and de Niceville, Butt, of Ind., vol. i, p. 127, n. 105 

 (1883) ; Kahanda malsarida, Moore, Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1880, p. 168 ; Mi/calesis 

 khasiana, Moore, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1874, p. 566; id., Marshall and de Niceville, 

 1. c, n. 106 ; Kahanda khasiana, Moore, Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1880, p. 168. 



Througli the kindness of the Rev. Walter A. Hamilton, I have 

 recently received from Sylhet twelve males and two females of this 

 species, all captured within a short period of one another. As regards 

 the upperside they show no variation. The species is a remarkable one, 

 in that it is the only Indian Mycalesis that has no ocelli whatever above . 

 The undersides, however, of these fourteen specimens (which Mr. Hamilton 

 selected for me from a very considerable number purposely to show 

 these variations) exhibit a perfect gradation from a specimen with a 

 single ocellus only (and that most minute, in the first median interspace 

 of the hind wing, all the other ocelli being reduced to minute dots) to 

 another with the ocelli as large as shewn in Mr. Butler's figure. In 

 addition to this ocellular variation, we have, concomitantly, quite as great 

 a diversity in the ground-colour. In the form with the obsolete ocelli, the 

 basal two-thirds of the wings are ochreous-brown, and the outer third, 

 with the abdominal margin of the hindwing, is purplish-grey. In the form 

 with all the ocelli large and perfect, we have the whole of the ground- 

 colour much darker, the discal purple line much more prominent, the 

 purplish grey border of the other form entirely absent, and the series of 

 ocelli surrounded by a purple line. Every gradation^is before me between 

 these two extremes. 



When this species was treated of in " The Butterflies of India," 

 the authors had not seen M. khasiana ; had they had access to a single 

 typical specimen, they would not have questioned its specific distinct- 

 ness from M. malsarida. There is no doubt, however, that these two 

 species are as much one as are Melanitis leda and M. ismene or Myc%lesis 

 hlasius and M. perseus. These extraordinary variations are no doubt 

 entirely caused by the state of the atmosphere at the moment probably 

 when the larva is turning to a pupa and all its tissues are soft. With 

 regard to many of the Indian Satyrincc, they are divided into two strongly- 

 3G 



