| OCR Text |
Show 1873.] MR. W. S. ATKINSON ON A NEW BUTTERFLY. 571 wings elongate, the basal half very narrow, inner margin concave beyond the extremity of the abdomen, outer margin prominently convex, scalloped, and tailed. The precostal nervure branched, nearly as in Eurycus. Legs of moderate length ; anterior tibiae with a stout spine near the middle ; tarsi slender, the first joint very long ; claws simple, of unequal length. Abdomen slender, extending to less than half the length of the posterior wings. This genus is in some respects intermediate between the Mediterranean genus Thais and the Chinese Sericinus. BHUTANITIS LIDDERDALII, n. sp. (Plate L.) Body and all the wings fuliginous black, with irregular white markings. Posterior wings three-tailed. Anterior wings above with the cell crossed by four slender white bars at equal distances, and with a fifth similar bar beyond the extremity of the cell; the first and second bars continued in wavy scalloped lines to the interior margin, the third and fourth with white loops attached to their extremities below the nervure of the cell; a submarginal scalloped line from before the apex to the rounded posterior angle, within which are two somewhat suffused and deeply scalloped and irregular lines from the costal to the interior margin. Posterior wings with the upper and outer portion marked with a network of white lines, the lower anal portion occupied by a large coloured patch, of which the upper part is bright crimson-red, and the lower rich orange, composed of three submarginal lunules, of which the interior is the largest and the exterior the smallest; the space between the red and orange occupied by a broad, transverse, deeply black belt, extending from the third median nervule to the anal angle, containing two large blind ocelli surmounted by white lunules, the first at the anal angle and the second between the first and second median nervules, together with a trace of a third ocellus between the second and third median nervules. The three median nervules extended into linear tails, of which the outermost is the longest (y^ of an inch), and the innermost the shortest (about T 3^ of an inch). The underside of all the wings marked as above, but with the white lines broader, the orange lunules of a lighter colour, and the crimson-red replaced by light pink. The abdomen barred and streaked longitudinally with yellowish-white lines ; anal extremity yellow. Expanse of wings 4\ inches. This fine insect was first discovered in M a y 1868, near Buxa, in the Bhutan Himalayas, at an elevation of 5000 feet, by Dr. R. Lidderdale, of the Bengal army. Dr. Lidderdale obtained two fresh specimens from the same locality in 1872; and from one of these, kindly communicated to me, the foregoing description and the accompanying drawing have been prepared. I am glad to associate Dr. Lidderdale's name with his very in- |
