44 Address. [Feb., 



Meos eastward to the Du<ib and sub- Himalayan districts of the N.-W. 

 Provinces should, when fully examined, throw much light on the early 

 medial val history of Upper India. In Mr. R. S. Whiteway's place-names 

 in Merwara we have a useful contribution to local topography, and in 

 Mr. Pargiter's notes on the dialect of the Chittagong district, an excellent 

 contribution to the survey of the Indian dialects which we hope soon to see 

 placed on a better and more comprehensive footing. Mr. Oliver's paper 

 on the decline of the Samanis and the rise of the Ghaznavis in Mawara- 

 un-Nahr and part of Khurasan is illustrated by some hitherto unpub- 

 lished coins which enable us to fill up some gaps in the scanty records 

 of the past of those regions. Babu Sarat Chandra Das has also contri- 

 buted a paper on the Buddhist and other legends about Khoten, the 

 Li-yul of the Tibetans, and the Chandana of the early Indian writers. 



In Part II of the Journal, we have contributions by Dr. Barclay 

 on the species of uredine affecting the Himalayan spruce-fir (Abies smi- 

 thiana) and the deodar (Cedrus deodar a), also descriptions of three new 

 Himalayan primulae and two species of ilex by G. King, M. B., Superin- 

 tendent of the Royal Botanical Gardens. A very interesting paper by 

 the latter gentleman on some species of Ficas from New Guinea gives 

 a new arrangement of the genus and descriptions of seventeen new 

 species. In the domain of Zoology, the invertebrates are, at last, taking 

 the place to which their scientific and economical importance entitle 

 them. We have published during the year, papers on the Rhopalocerous 

 Lepidoptera (butterflies) of Kumaon by an American entomologist, Mr. 

 W. Doherty, and additional notes on new or rare Indian butterflies by 

 the same writer, whilst Mr. de Niceville also describes and illustrates 

 nine new Indian butterflies chiefly from Sikkim, and, with Mr. Wood- 

 Mason, gives a list of the butterflies of Cachar. Mr. Elwes and Mr. de 

 Niceville together publish a list of the butterflies of Tavoy, and the latter 

 writer further adds to our knowledge of this popular order of insects by 

 notes on the life-history of some Calcutta species of Satyrince, in which 

 he explains and proves the occurrence of seasonal dimorphism amongst 

 them. Some species are furnished on the underside of the wings, in the 

 broods that are on the wing during the rainy season, with strongly 

 marked and conspicuous ocellated spots, whilst, in the same species, or 

 other species that take their place, during the cold and dry seasons, 

 those markings are obsolete or entirely wanting, and the general tone of 

 coloration is much paler and more leaf-like. No sufficient explanation of 

 this phenomenon has as yet been arrived at, but the fact has been dis- 

 tinctly proved by actual breeding, with the result that several species 

 hitherto considered distinct must be held to be one and the same. Mr. 

 Moore's paper on the Heterocerous Lepidoptera (moths) of Tavoy and 



