739 
THE IDENTIFICATION OF INDIAN BUTTERFLIES. 
By 
Lieut. -Colonel W. H. Evans, D.S.O., R.E., F.Z.S., F.E.S. 
( With 2 text figures.) 
1. In a former paper, entitled “ Butterfly collecting in India,” I have 
described briefly the characteristics of Indian butterflies and how to catch and 
preserve them. The object of the present article is to exjilain in simple lan- 
guage how butterflies are to be identified. There are several means of doing 
this. Perhaps the simplest is to get an expert to do it for one ; anotlicr b}' 
comparison with Museum collections or coloured diagrams and lastly by wor- 
rying them out with a text book, such as Bingham’s or De Niceville’s. Muse- 
ums and coloured diagrams are inaccessible to the majorily of collectors except 
at rare intervals. Experts are few and far between and often somewhat un- 
satisfactory, so that the only thing remaining to be done is to work with a text 
book, v'hich method, I may add is the most satisfactory in the long run. I would 
warn the reader that the identification of the 1,500 odd butterflies to be ob tam- 
ed in the Indian Empire is no easy matter even for the Museum expert and, 
unless the subject is studied in a methodical manner, the results are likely to 
be most inaccurate. Still do not bs dismayed ; except perhaps for the Blues 
and Skippers, the names of the butterflies, that are ordinarily to be met wdth, 
can be picked up pretty quickly, while the rarer or more obscure species can be 
put aside until a museum can be visited or an expert consulted. 
2. As a prelude to identification it is necessary to understand the system 
of classification in general use. Now the object of classification is to arrange 
the specimens being classified in the most convenient manner possible for refer- 
ence. With the various species belonging to the Animal and Vegetable King- 
doms the accepted desideratum is to follow what is called the natural order of 
evolution, the lowly bacteria being at the beginning of the list and man, in the 
opinion of himself, at the end. 
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The system of evolution may be compared to a tree. Consider the butter- 
flies as represented by such a tree, which has sprung in the distant past from 
some older tree and so on from the earliest forms of life. Imagine our tree 
to be composed of a number of branches, from each of which has sprung a 
number of branchlets and from each of which again there have growm a 
number of twigs. The twigs represent the various sjiecies of butterflies and 
Hie problem is to arrange them in the best order possible. The correct solution 
of the problem is to take the lowest branch and to lay it on the ground ; 
on its right is placed the next branch and so on to the last or topmost ; the 
branchlets are then stripped off and laid above each branch in the same order 
