a List of the Butterflies of Hong-Kong. 437 
wet and dry seasons, due to the south-west and north- 
east monsoons, are here well marked. With an average 
temperature of about 73^ for the whole year, the heat 
from May to October is very oppressive, though the 
thermometer rarely rises above 90*^ ; and three-fourths 
of the total rainfall of the year is precipitated between 
these months. I had little or no opportunity of col- 
lecting in any part of this season, but I am informed 
that butterflies are not nearly as plentiful as in the 
earlier months of the year. This is, however, un- 
doubtedly the season for moths, as well as for Coleoptera, 
especially the Longicornes, Lamellicornes, and other 
leaf- and wood-feeding groups, which are but poorly 
represented at other times of the year. With October 
comes bright, pleasant, and comparatively cool weather, 
and a fine burst of butterfly life, and this lasts until 
the middle of January, gradually becoming cooler as 
the north-east monsoon blows fairJy home. Then come 
six weeks or two months of dull, cheerless, gloomy 
weather, during which the sun is often obscured for 
four or five days at a time; there is little actual rain, 
but frequent drizzle and thick wet mist, and the 
temperature seldom rises above 60*^ in the daytime. 
This is, of course, very poor collecting weather, but on 
the rare sunny days a good many butterflies may be 
found on the wing even at this period, and at the 
beginning of March a considerable number of species, 
including a large proportion of the Pajpilionidse, emerge 
from the chrysalis. Some heavy showers usually occur 
about the end of March, and April here is not unlike 
what it is popularly supposed to be at home — a month 
of mingled shower and sunshine, but of course a good 
deal warmer than in England. This is, I think, the 
most pleasant and remunerative time of the year for 
the Lepidopterist, as in May the heat renders collecting 
decidedly hard work, and I noticed a marked falling 
off", both in number and condition, of the butterflies on 
the wing during that month. 
This sketch of the meteorological conditions of Hong- 
Kong would not be complete without some mention of 
the abnormal weather which prevailed in the middle of 
January, 1893, and the disastrous effects of the frost 
which then occurred — a frost, I should imagine, without 
precedent at the sea-level within the tropics — on insect 
