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Show 860 MR. H. J. ELWES ON THE BUTTERFLIES [Nov. 15, with which, as I have shown in Proc. Zool. Soc. 1873, p. 645 et seq., it is so intimately connected. The same remark applies to Formosa, which I have also excluded. Of the Butterflies of North China we know almost nothing ; but the little we know shows what a rich harvest, is to be reaped there by a collector. The countries between China proper and Amurland are terra incognita; but Amurland itself has been recently well worked by several good entomologists : Messrs. Christoph, Dorries, Jankowsky, and Hedemann have all collected largely in various localities, from the Schilka river on the Upper Amur, down to Blagovestchensk, Raddef-skaia or Raddefka, and Khabarofka, all of which are situated on the main stream. The Bureija Mountains north of the river also yielded a rich collection to Radde ; but do not seem to have been revisited. That part of the river which lies between the junction of the Ussuri at Khabarofka and Nikolaiefsk at the mouth of the Amur does not seem to have been much worked, the climate becoming much more severe on the north-east coast. The southern part of the maritime province near Vladivostock and the island of Askold seems to have many species not occurring on the Amur which were previously only known from Japan; aud it is probable that the insects of Corea are very similar. An account of Christoph's journey, giving interesting particulars of the country, is published in the 'Stettiner entomologische Zeitung' for 1870, pp. 201 and 401. I have included one or two species which seem to occur only on the Sea of Ochotsk to the northward of Amurland proper; but very little is known of that region or of the great island of Saghalien. The only part of Japan which seems to have been at all thoroughly worked by lepidopterists is the neighbourhood of Tokio and Yokohama ; and in most cases no exact indication of locality is given for Japanese insects. Of the great southern islands of Sikok and Kiusiu little or nothing is known, though it is possible that some of De l'Orza's species came from there. The climate of Southern and Central Japan is so different from that of the north, that the large proportion of species of Indian affinity which is found there can be easily accounted for; and when we consider the great extent of mountainous unexplored country, it is clear that much must be done before any thing like a good account of the Lepidoptera of Japan can be given. The climate of N. China and Amurland is generally very cold in winter, the Peiho and Amur rivers being closed by ice for several months. In the summer it is warm and wet on the coast region, but much drier in the interior, especially in the north of China and Man-tchuria. South of Shanghai the winter becomes so much milder that tropical forms of animal and vegetable life rapidly take the place of temperate ones ; but some species of thoroughly tropical affinities and appearance extend far into North-eastern Asia and Japan, in the same way that some tropical birds migrate to Amurland and North China during the breeding-season. In this paper I have taken the genera for the most part as I found |