EIIOPALOCEEA MALAY AN A. 



71 



margin of the posterior wings, one being marginal ami two sub marginal t the middle one darkest and the 

 inner one palest. The posterior wings possess two large suhmarginal ocellated spots, which are ochraceous, 

 speckled with fuscous, possessing white centres and black outer margins, the inner borders of ^hich are 

 narrowly ochraceous ; the lower and lur^r spot has the white centre somewhat lunate, aud is followed 

 posteriorly by a broad blackish suffusion ; the upper of these spots is situate between the subcostal nervules, 

 and the lower one between the second and third median nervules. The anal-angular prolongation of the 

 posterior wings is spotted as above and has a large mitral eastaneous suffusion. Body and legs more or 

 less concolorous with wings. 



The male possesses four long, curved tufts of hair on eaeh side of the terminal segments of the 

 abdomen. A somewhat similar tuft is situate about the centre of tin; abdominal margin to the posterior 

 wings, on the inner side of the submediiiu in rvmv : and between the submedian nervure and third median 

 norvule within a Fold of the wing are also a few long hairs. Both of these, judging by analogous reasoning, 

 are probably the coverings of scent-glands or pouches. 



Female. Larger than the male ; wings above paler, with an ochraceous discal fascia crossing both 

 wings, widest near costa of anterior wings, and very narrow on posterior wings ; the suhmarginal fascue as 

 in male, but concolorous with the oeln-rieoous margins. Win^s beneath as in male, but much paler, 



Exp. wings, <T U6' to lul millim. j ? 108 to 11*2 millim. 



Hah. — Andaman Islands (colls. Moore and Calc. Mus.) — Tenasserim; Meetan (Limborg). — Malay 

 roninsula; Penang; Province Wellesley (colls. Dist. aud Saiier) ; Malacca (Jirit. Mub.) — Sumatra (coll. 

 Moore).— Billiion (coll. Godm. & Salv.)— Java (Horsf. Coll. Brit. Mus.)— Borneo (coll. Godm. & Hatv.) ; 

 Banjermasin (coll. Dist.) — Celebes (Snellin). — Siam ; Chcutaboon (coll. Godm, & Salv.) 



This species varies in the depth and intensity of hue possessed by the fuscous fasci© on 

 the under surfaces of the wings, as exhibited in the male and female forms here figured, and 

 which may he taken as typical of the varietal extremes. 



It is also of crepuscular flight. In Java and Celebes, according to Piepers, '* the sun has 

 scarcely set before we see everywhere* 1 this and a few other species of like habits ; but the sanie 

 author remarks, " I never saw these? species wandering about at ni^ht in the moonlight, or 

 entering lighted rooms, like the true night-moths, which are very numerous, although, like the 

 bitter, they sit still and repose all day, and if disturbed only fty a little way and settle again 

 directly." * Mr.Collingwood speaks of these butterflies in the Bornean island, Labuan, as making 

 " their appearance near sunset, when, from their large size, they might be almost mistaken for 

 small bats."t In the Malay Peninsula //. jthirfippus possesses the local name of "cocoa-nut 

 moth/* and, as Mr. Bigg writes, il it delights in shady places, and is especially found about 

 attap-sheds and on dead cocoa-nut leaves." J The dull coloration of this species especially 

 Assimilates it to such an environment, and allords a wry fair exaiitplo of what is understood by 

 *' protective r- inMniice," or, as it might also be expressed, assimilative coloration. § 



* Tijd. Em. x\x. pp. xviii. to xiiv., and English translation by Kirby, 'Entomologist,* s. p, '271. 

 | ' RiuolHw of a Naturalist;/ p. IBS. | Mmtlh. I'acket. vol. ii. p. 1(11 <l«Hlk 



i Altiiniu'li tUf tLrnry .if 41 protective r<*cmldutM<r ". in animal life ouvk it> i-|u<-id.iiii<ii to i\u ]uboui> ami innght 

 of Wallace and Darwin, it, like other similar facts, had not escaped the attention of the older natnralifita of tekological 

 tendencies. Tlma St. licnc i* Studios of Nature,' Hunter's trans), vol. it. p. 175, 18091 relates:— " In tin- month of March hist 

 I obaerre-dt by the brink of the rivulet which washes the Gobelin*, i huttertly (tooth?) of the colour of brick, repoamg with 

 expanded wings on a tuft of grid. Ou my approaching liira he flo w off. He alighted at same paces distance on the grotmd, 

 which at that place was of the same colour with hiinnelf. 1 approached him a icoond time; he tooi a second flight, and 

 perched tiftiLiti on a similar stripe of t*iirth. In a word, I found it was nut in my power to oblige him to alight on the xraro, 

 t k l i < i i - ] i I made frequent a ttemptu to that effect, and though the spaces of earth 'which separated the tiwty m>iI were narrow 

 and raw in number." My late friend D. G. Rutherford recorded Bomewhat similar habits in an African butterfly, Atcrica 

 mrU-fVjrit, Hit- colour of whose- win^s beneath, when at rest, m aswiinibiled with the colour of the soil on which it settled tis to 

 make ita detection a matter of the greatest dimr-ulty (Proc. Ent. Soc. 187S, p. xlii); and Mr. Jniiiur Weir has exhibited 

 upeonnens of Ilijijitirchiti hfmcte which also showed a leiidi-m-y to vary hetioalh in accordance with the nature ul" the mhI m 



