APPENDIX A. 501 



The geographical distribution of the Hawk-Moths has, as 

 already mentioned, been fully dealt with by previous writers. 

 The topographical distribution, on the other hand, has been 

 neglected by many authors. Rudolph Mell was the first to 

 specify, so far as he was able, the kind of country, altitude, 

 climate, &c, which each species is found to frequent. 



The reason for this neglect in the past was due to the 

 fragmentary knowledge of the Hawk-Moth fauna of any 

 particular district and to ignorance of the early stages and 

 their food-plants. No area in the Old World, outside Europe, 

 had been worked intensively enough to provide the necessary 

 data. Mell has now worked South China more or less 

 thoroughly, and we have studied the Kanara District of the 

 Bombay Presidency for an even longer period. We have 

 caught or bred every sphingid species known to occur in the 

 district with the exception of Agnosia orneus and Leucophlebia 

 lineata. We propose, therefore, to give a description of the 

 general features of the Kanara District and the characters that 

 distinguish it topographically and botanically. This should 

 be studied in connection with the distribution list given 

 above, showing the preferences of the different species in the 

 matter of elevation, climate, &c, and whether they are local, 

 rare or otherwise. In nearly every case we have reliable 

 information regarding the caterpillar, and the imagines must 

 of course occur in the same places. Their distribution is, 

 most probably, chiefly controlled by the food-plants of the 

 caterpillars. It is so controlled, certainly, within small areas 

 where the differences of elevation do not exceed two or three 

 thousand feet, though in areas with greater differences eleva- 

 tion is bound to be a more dominant factor. 



The Kanara District is 3,600 square miles in extent, and is 

 situated between 13° 45' and 15° 0' north latitude and 74° 10' 

 and 75° 10' east longitude. It is irregularly triangular in 

 shape, coming to a point in the south, and has a sea-coast 

 on the west, for some 80 miles, on the Indian Ocean. There 

 is a strip of more or less flat coast-land, and then the scarp 

 of the Western Ghats rises sharply to an average height of 

 1,500 feet above sea-level. The ground then rises gradually 

 to the east to an elevation of 2,600 feet through very hilly 

 country covered with forest and small areas of terraced rice- 

 fields, two hills in the north reaching an elevation of over 

 3,000 feet. The largest river in the district, the Kalinadi, 

 rises in Goa territory and flows into the sea at Karwar, the 

 headquarters of the district, after a course of about 100 miles. 

 Three other rivers have perennial water, on one of which, 

 the Shiravati, are the Gersoppa Falls, with a sheer drop 

 of 834 feet, the finest falls in India. Between the river- 

 valleys the country is hilly, spurs from the crest of the Ghats 



