178 L. de Niceville — List of the Butter/lies of Ceylon, [N'o. 3, 



9. EuPLCEA. (Crastia) asela, Moore. 



This species is an insalar form of the continental Indian E. corey 

 Cramer. It is one of the commonest of our batterflies at all elevations, 

 especially so in November and December when it joins in the annual 

 flights in thousands. As it is a fairly well-marked species, and has 

 never been recorded from any locality outside Ceylon, it would seem 

 that the annual migrations so-called of the Ceylonese butterflies are 

 purely local, and that the flights do not even reach to the mainland of 

 South India by Adam's Bridge across the narrow Palk Strait. The 

 larva feeds on Nerium^ and probably also on species of Ficus. 



We have removed E. (Crastia) frauenfeldii, Felder, and E. (Crastia) 

 scherzeri^ Felder, from the list of Ceylonese butterflies. Felder's 

 original descriptions of these species are to be found in a list of the 

 butterflies captured at the various ports at which the frigate " Novara " 

 touched, written in 1862. E. frauenfeldii was said by Dr. Felder to 

 have come from " Ceylon," and by Dr. Moore from " Trincomalee, on 

 the N.-E. side of the island," there being a single male from thence 

 in the British Museum. E. schertzeri is also said by Felder to have 

 come from "Ceylon," and is so recorded by Moore on Felder's 

 authority. It is de Niceville's opinion that Felder's type specimens of 

 both these species were wrongly located, and that they both came from 

 the Nicobar Isles, which the " Novara " visited. If this be so, E. camorta, 

 Moore, is a synonym of E. scherzeri. He has examined the type specimens 

 of both E. frauenfeldii and E. scherzeri in the Natural History Museum 

 of Vienna. As regards the specimen from Trincomalee mentioned above 

 which has been described and figured by Dr. Moore as E. frauenfeldii^ 

 the identification is certainly incorrect, it being nothing less than 

 E. lorquinii, Felder, originally described from South China, and very 

 common at Hong-Kong and on the opposite mainland of Southern China, 

 E. (Crastia) felderi, Butler, is a synonym of it as stated by Butler 

 himself, though the type is said to have come from Sumatra, but it is 

 recorded also by Butler from Hong-Kong. Felder himself in 1865 united 

 E. frauenfeldii to E. esperi, Felder, originally described from " Kar 

 Nicobar," saying that the type specimens are opposite sexes of one 

 species, and the species will stand under the former name from the 

 Nicobars, with E. (Tronga) hiseriata, Moore, as a second synonym. As 

 neither E. frauenfeldii nor E. scherzeri have (with the exception of the 

 British Museum specimen of the former mentioned above) for nearly 

 forty years been found in Ceylon, and that Euploeas are large, conspicuous, 

 and very easily caught butterflies which (where they occur) are nearly 



