1888.] Address. 65 



III the Zoological Society's Proceedings, Colonel Swinhoe lias a paper 

 on the Lej)icloptera of Mhow, and Mr. H. J. Elwes and Mr. L. de 

 Niceville describe new Indian species. Mr. de Niceville is also engaged 

 on the Lycoenidm which will form the third part of his work on the 

 butterflies of India, Burma and Ceylon. In the ' Annals,^ Mr. H. 

 Grose Smith records new species of butterflies from N". Borneo, Celebes, 

 Philippines, Timor, Burma, and S. Afghanistan ; Mr. W. L. Distant 

 furnishes notes on the SpMngidce from the Malay Peninsula, and de- 

 scribes a new species of Amhulyx from North Borneo, and, with Mr. Pryer, 

 some Rhopalocera from the same tract. I would notice in the ' Journal 

 of the Bombay Natural History Society,^ the interesting chatty notes 

 entitled the ' Waters of Western India ', and Captain Maopherson's life- 

 history of Hestia malabarica. Mr. B. D, Morgan tells us that the 

 Russian naturalist, M. Grumm-Grshimailo examined carefully the lepi- 

 dopterous fauna of the Pamirs in 1884-85, and considers it to be distinct 

 from that of the Thian-Shan, so far as known, but it has many affinities 

 with that of the Hindu Kush, at least so far as types common to both 

 would appear to indicate. ' The inference drawn from this fact is that 

 at the period when the lepidoptera (and therefore other orders as well) 

 of the Pamir were established, this region was in closer connection with 

 the countries to the south of it than with those to the north ; in other 

 words, the Pamirs were then detached from the Thian-Shan. This may 

 be explained in two ways ; (1) a non- synchronous upheaval of the two 

 mountain masses, or (2), if their upheaval took place at the same time, 

 there was a certain interval of time during which they were parted 

 from one another by a wide aqueous expanse, that is to say, at that period 

 the ranges which now unite the Pamir with the Thian-Shan were non- 

 existing, and Ferghana and Kashgar formed the bed of one sea — the 

 Tarim- Ferghana.' I quote this suggestion at some length to show to 

 what ingenious purposes the geographical distribution of our insect 

 fauna may be applied. The ' Memoires sur les Lepidopteres,' edited by 

 N. M. Romanoff, and published in St. Petersburgh, contains many illus- 

 trated papers on the butterflies of Asiatic Russia and the neighbouring 

 countries. 



Botany. — Since I last addressed you. Government has made an 

 arrangement by which the energies of Mr. J. F. Duthie, of the 

 Saharanpur Botanic Garden, shall be almost exclusively devoted to 

 the botanical exploration of the northern part of the Empire. The 

 Flora of the whole of the North West frontier and of the Hima^ 

 laya as far east as Nepal, together with the plains provinces of 

 Sindh, the Panjab, Rajputana, the North West Provinces and Oudh, 

 can now thus be explored on a definite and well-organised plan. The 



