1880.] J. Wood-Mcasou & L. de Niccville— Z^if of Batterjlies, Sfo. 223 



XXI. — List of Diurnal Lepidopfccra from Port Blair, Andaman Islands, 

 with Descriptions of some new or little-known Species and of a new 

 Species of Hestia from Bariiiah. — Bi/ J. Wood-Mason, Deputy 

 Superintendent, Indian Museum, and L. DE Nice'vilie, 



(With Plate XIII.) 



The first collection of Andamanese Lepidopfcera of any importance was 

 made by the native collector (Moti llani) who accompanied Mr. Wood- 

 Mason on his first visit to the Andaman Islands in the year 1872, and 

 remained at Port JJlair for some months after Mr. Wood-Mason's return 

 to Calcutta, collecting insects in the immediate vicinity of the settlement. 

 This collection was entrusted for determination and description in this 

 Journal to the late Mr. W. S. Atkinson, who, however, only described in 

 the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society' two of the more obvious novel- 

 ties, and eventually returned a few of the specimens to Mr. G. Nevill, who 

 at that time had charge of the Museum collection of lepidopterous insects, 

 and who placed them in the collection. These specimens are included in 

 the present list. 



Since 1872, numerous collections of Lepidoptera have been formed at 

 Port Blair and at Kamorta in the Nicobars by the officers of the Port 

 Blair establishment, and forwarded by them to England, where in 1877 

 Mr. F. Moore examined all the material that had been thus collected and 

 drew up a complete list of " The Lepidopterous Fauna of the Andaman 

 and Nicobar Islands," describing therein many new species and varieties 

 both of butterflies and moths. In this list, 71 species of rhopalocerous 

 Lepidoptera are recorded as inhabitants of the Andaman Islands. Since 

 Mr. Moore's paper appeared, 4i new species and varieties of butterflies have 

 been described by as many diff'erent authors, bringing up this number to 

 75. In the present list, 29 additional species, five of them described for 

 the first time, are recorded, making a total of 10-1, — a number which might 

 no doubt be largely increased by an experienced collector in a few weeks. 



Several common species which occur everywhere in the neighbouring 

 regions are not recorded, and these are all the more conspicuous by their 

 absence from the circumstance that their supposed models are also absent ; 

 we allude to Hypolimnas misippus, Elymnias undularis, and the 2nd and 3rd 

 forms of the female of Papilio polytes, which respectively mimick Danais 

 chri/sipptis, Danais ^;Ze.r;}>^;iw, Papilio hector, and Papilio aristolochiae. 

 It is a curious fact that both in the Kulu valley and in the Simla district 

 in the North-Wostern Himalayas, where Papilio hector and P. aristola- 

 chiac have never been found, the same forms of the female of Papilio 



