1892.] L. de Niceville — Subgenus Pademma of the genus Euplcoa. 239 



reliably distinct, and in the Khasi Hills, which may be said to be the 

 head-quarters of the Pademmas, as there they exist in the greatest 

 number of individuals, a bewildering multiplicity of various forms is 

 met with. Messrs. Butler aud Moore, but especially the latter, have 

 described a great number of these quite inconstant forms as distinct 

 species, and the present writer with the material at his disposal, could 

 if desired, easily describe a dozen more such species, many of them far 

 more distinct in superficial appearance than several of Messrs. Moore 

 and Butler's. It appears to him that the only way to deal satis- 

 factorily with these puzzling species is to treat all of them (except 

 E. sinhala which appears to be constant owing to its insular habitat) 

 as geographical races of the earliest described E. Mugii. To this end he 

 has given below the full synonymy of the various forms and a brief 

 description of them. 



I must once more enter my protest against the erroneous views 

 held by home naturalists on the variability of these species. Messrs. 

 Wood-Mason, Marshall, Distant, Elwes, Adamson, Doherty, Watson, and 

 I, all of whom know these insects in life and have lived amongst them, 

 have written page upon page to shew how inconstant they are, yet Mr. 

 Moore, who has never been in the East, in his latest work on butterflies 

 (" Lepidoptera Indica"), admits eight distinct species, and eight named 

 " Varieties " of Pademma, all but one of the latter of which he described 

 as good and distinct species in 1883. When a species is obviously so 

 extremely variable as E. Mugii, it can be of no possible scientific use 

 to have names for every possible combination and permutation of the 

 blue-glossing of the upperside and of the disposition of the mark- 

 ings of both sides of the wings. These variations are obviously 

 mainly individual, and from the same batch of eggs it is almost certain 

 that several at least of these variations would be obtained were they 

 carefully bred. It is, however, of great scientific use to make out the 

 range and to describe the peculiarities of geographical races when these 

 are constant and sufficiently well-marked for definition each in its own 

 area, but this Mr. Moore never makes the slightest attempt to do. It 

 is hoped that what has been here written will tend to this desirable 

 result. 



I might also mention to shew the absurdity of the views expressed by 

 Mr. Moore in his Monograph of Euploeina written in 1883, in which seven- 

 teen distinct species of Pademma are given from India, — that I sent to 

 him, just after the appearance of that paper, 12 very variable specimens 

 of Pademma captured in the Arakan Hills, out of which he could only 

 name three. The inference was that the other nine specimens represent- 

 ed as many " new species." 



