OCR Text |
Show 1886.] MR. H. J. ELWES ON THE GENUS PARNASSIUS. 37 other, and the same may be said of those which I possess from Tibet, collected by Lang, and from Murghi, Ladak, 17,000 feet, both of which are males, like those in the British Museum. I have, in fact, of this species only one doubtful female, which was taken near the Shigri glacier in Lahoul, at 13,000 feet, on August 25, 1884, the abdomen of which is too much damaged for determination; a single pair from Ladak lent me from the Indian Museum, Calcutta ; and three pairs of the small variety sikkimensis, which I received through native collectors from the Chumbi valley on the Tibetan frontier of Sikkim, and which agree absolutely with the Shigri specimen in fringes and antennae. All the females from the Sikkim locality, of which I have received several, agree perfectly in the pouch of the female, which is without a keel, like the one figured here (Plate II. fig. 1), and seem to differ only in being of a smaller size than those from Tibet, Ladak, and the north-west. I cannot hear of any variation in the pouch of P. actius, which is keeled and indistinguishable in form from that of P. discobolus ; and am certain that the female of the species figured by Oberthiir as Boisduval's type also has a keel, so that the following points seem clear :- 1st, that Boisduval confounded two species in his description, of which one (my actius, var. himalayensis) has a keeled pouch, and the other, jacquemonti verus, has not. 2nd, that actius, var. rhodius, of Honrath,=epaphus, Oberthur, may be either P. actius or P. jacquemonti, as no reference to the female is made by either author, and the figures of the male cannot be distinguished from P. jacquemonti. The habits of the insect are little known, but the notes of Capt. Lang quoted by Moore may be applicable to the true P. jacquemonti. H e says, P. Z. S. 1865, p. 488 :-"It replaces P. hardwickei on the high passes of Upper Kunawur, Spiti, and Tibet. I first saw it on the Kongma pass, leading from Kunawur into the Chinese province of Gughe in Tibet, at an altitude of 18,000 feet. This pass is 16,000 feet, but I ascended its flank another 2000 feet to enjoy the far view over the distant Tibetan ranges, brown and treeless, closed to European foot, and backward among the sharp icy pinnacles of our own more familar Himalayan ranges ; and here I saw this Parnassius coursing rapidly up and down the frozen snow-beds, where beaches as it were of boulders and stones cropped out. What could tempt Parnassius there I know not, for I saw not a Sedum, nor a Saxifraga, nor any other vegetation. I met this Parnassius again at high elevations, in similar situations along the confines of Kunawur and Tibet. It does not occur apparently with the next" (P. hardwickei). In Sikkim it also occurs at great elevations and flies in August and September. I took myself, on the 20th September, 1870, a pair of this species in copula, on an unnamed pass above 18,000 feet elevation, by which I crossed from the Upper Lachoong valley in Sikkim to the Cholamoo lake in Tibet. These specimens were given to the late Mr. Atkinson, and now stand in the Hewitson Collection as P simo, along with one genuine example of that very distinct species from Ladak. |