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Show 1891.] THE NAGA AND KAREN HILLS AND PERAK. 267 YPTHIMA METHORA. (Plate XXVII. fig. 1, tf .) Ypthima methora, Hew. Trans. Ent. Soc. ser. 3, ii. p. 291, t. xviii. 20, 21 2 (1864) ; Elwes, op. cit. 1888, p. 326 ; de Nicev. J. A. S. B. vol.lv. pt. ii. p. 233 (1887). In writing of this species only two years ago I endeavoured to show how the form which I believed to be identical with Hewitson's species might be distinguished in Sikkim from Y. sakra, Moore, and from Y. philomela, Hiibn., with which I thought it had been confused by Marshall and de Niceville. I have now received numerous specimens of three firms of Ypthima, collected by Doherty in Eastern Pegu at 2000 feet elevation and upwards, which I find it difficult to name with certainty. The difficulty arises from the fact that the types of Y. methora in Hewitson's collection are females, and therefore we are unable to say whether it belongs to the group in which the male is characterized by the presence of a sexual mark or patch of raised scales on the upperside of the fore wing, as seen in Y.philomela and Y. motschulskyi, or whether it is, as I supposed, mora nearly allied to Y. sakra, in which there is no sexual mark. Of the three forms now in question from Burmah, one is what is spoken of as Y. methora by Marshall and de Niceville in Butt. Ind. i. p. 215, of which Y. marshalli, Butl., is the cold-weather form, with minute ocelli, and which has been bred from Y. philomela at Calcutta by de Niceville (cf. J. A. S. B. Iv. pt. ii. 1886, p. 231). The male has a more or less indistinct sexual patch, which in some quite fresh specimens is hardly if at all visible, and which makes me doubt the propriety of using this as a character on which the genus can be divided into groups1. The ocelli are constant in number and position but variable in size. The underside is crossed by three distinct bands. The second form is like it but smaller, with the inner and middle bands on the underside almost obsolete, and but for the faintness or absence of the sexual patch would, without any hesitation, be called Y. philomela. The third is much larger, with larger ocelli, and agrees with what I spoke of as the rainy-season brood of Y. methora in my Sikkim Catalogue, which I have from Sikkim, Bhutan, the Khasia and Naga Hills, except that the underside is much paler and the ocelli even more prominent, especially the second one on the hind wing above. This is the more remarkable because the specimens appear to have been taken at a time, March and April, when the form with minute 1 Since writing this I have seen very large numbers of Ypthimce in Mr. Leech's collection from China, which tend to confirm m y opinion that the so-called sex-mark is an inconstant character. Some of these are Y. motschulskyi, which normally has a well-defined sex-mark, but in others from the same locality this is faint or altogether wanting, and the variation in size and in the striation of the underside is so great that one cannot tell whether they belong to one or more species. Seasonal dimorphism does not seem to occur in China in this genus or in Mycalesis to anything like the same extent as in India, which is only to be expected when we know how different are the seasons. |