NYCTEMERA. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
2G7 
species. In the pupa mostly the spots of the abdomen of the imago show through. The imagines are mostly 
met with in numbers; they fly in day-time and are mostly common in their patria, often the most common 
butterflies of the district. They are most tenacious of life and even by entirely squeezing the thorax they are 
not killed. 
N. coleta Cr. (29 a). Forewing sooty blackish-brown, with white, small, wedge-shaped spots in the coleta. 
basal part and an oblique macular band, hindwing white with a black border; from this border along the median 
veins black wedge-shaped streaks extend, whereby the species differs from all the similar ones. The wedge- 
shaped spots and the band of the forewing may be narrow, in some places even dying away, in which case mostly 
the marginal band of the hindwing is very broad. Indo-China, across the Sunda Islands to the Moluccas, New 
Guinea and the Philippines. In Java and Sumatra there occur beside the typical specimens also such with 
a very broad band of the forewing and an almost hyaline hindwing, the marginal band of which is scarcely 
half as broad as in typical specimens; I denominate this form ab. subvitrea ab. nov. (29 a). -—- In Ceylon there subvitrea. 
occurs a constantly different form, in the hindwing of which the median and its branches are distinctly marked 
black; near Colombo and up in Kandy common; this is the form nigrovenosa Moore (29 a). — melaneura Btlr. nigrovenosa. 
(29 a) has much narrower dark margins of the wings, but all the veins are thick and black; it mostly comes melaneura. 
from the Island of Nias, but it also occurs in North Australia in a form not different from Nias-specimens, and 
dark specimens are known from Ceram as melas Bob. — Not rare; I took the species near Singapore in the melas. 
Botanical Gardens. The imago flies in day-time and in its flight resembles some Pierids, such as Ixias-Q, forms 
of the group of Pieris nerissa etc. 
N. tripunctaria L. (= petulca Sparrm., atralba Hbn.) (29 a). In its shape it approximates the prece- tripuncta- 
cling, the wedge-shaped spots of the base of the forewing are narrower, the oblique band of the forewing straighter rm • 
and not so much divided into small spots by the veins. In typical tripunctaria, as they particularly fly in Indo- 
China, where I took them together with the preceding species near Singapore, the ground-colour of the forewing 
and the band of the hindwing is of a deep sooty black; the marginal band of the hindwing is broad and proxi- 
mally little dentate. This form also occurs in Sumatra; but there we also find ab. sumatrensis Pagenst. ( nec sumatren- 
Heyl.) (29 a) besides known from the Kinabalu in North Borneo, in which the band of the forewing is broader, sls - 
particularly widened in the middle, the wedge-shaped spot of the forewing is narrower, so is the black marginal 
band on the hindwing. — celsa Wkr. (29 e) is larger, the ground-colour of the forewing more brown than black, celsa. 
the white somewhat darkened, the marginal band of the hindwing broad. From China where I took the species 
in great numbers in Happy Valley in the Island of Hongkong. Siam-specimens form a transition to the form 
described first. — candidissima form. nov. (29 b) I denominate specimens from Hainan flying there in July candidissi- 
and August. Here the upper surface is all white, unmarked, also the body being white except a slight yellow ma - 
colouring on the head, collar and abdominal end. Beneath the marking of tripunctaria is sometimes very slightly 
indicated. From alba Pag. from Samoa (30 a), being likewise all w r hite, it is at once discernible by the much 
broader wings. —-Of gratia Schultze I cannot say whether it belongs here, no specimen lying before me. It gratia. 
is all white awd must therefore be similar to candidissima, but it is larger, the veins of the wings partly 
brown, the abdomen with dark transverse bands, that on the penultimate joint strong. Luzon. —- harca Holl. harca. 
has the oblique band of the forewing with straightly cut margins and the white basal ray narrower. Malacca. 
The species is very common. 
N. amplificata Wkr., known from different Lesser Sunda Islands, particularly Nias, occurs in all shades amplificata. 
to be thought of, varying from rather dark specimens ( amplificata Wkr.) to somewhat lighter, more bronze- 
brown ones (cydippe Weym., 29 b), then optata Swinh. (29 b) in which the hindwing is already all white, except cydippe. 
faint shades at the ends of the veins (still much fainter than in our figure) — to pallens Voll. (29 c) in which 
the marking is scarcely noticeable. The forewing has an invariably large, though dull and badly defined 
discal spot and the hindwing a marginal band always proximally dentate. On our figures this marginal band 
is throughout too dark, so that the teeth of its proximal margin are not distinctly defined in all the figures 
(as for instance in the figure of pallens and cydippe <$, where these teeth are much too pale and thereby indistinct). 
The imago must be very common and there may also occur snow-white specimens easily discernible from alba 
Pag. by the shape of the wing. Before me a long series with different transitory specimens of the single forms. 
N. ovada Sivinh. is placed between optata and kinabalina by its author, but it is mentioned not ovada. 
to approximate any Nyctemera. Head and body white, marked darker, abdomen above unspotted, but 
with small, brown lateral stripes, in some places tinted yellowish. The forewung has above only a white costal 
spot and below it only an indistinct small stripe indicating the beginning of the usual discal band; beneath this 
band is more developed. Hindwing white, the usual marginal band bronze-brown. Size that of a small 
sontica. Waingapo, Sumba. — Unknown to me. 
N. latistriga Wkr. nec Snell. (= arcuatum Sivinh. nec Voll.) (29 c) is not dissimilar to a small tripunc- latistriga. 
taria, but the antennae show longer pinnae, and the black marginal band of the hindwing projects proximally 
on the lower median vein in a strong tooth. As the type I regard the form distributed from the Himalaya to 
Ceylon and the Sunda Islands across the whole of India as far as the Moluccas. In some places the white 
marginal band of the forewing or the dark marginal band of the hindwing appears slightly narrower, the band 
