collected at my disposal. Messrs. Allan and Craddock, of the Burma Forest Department, have sent me small but very useful collections from Pegu and the Southern Shan States; and to Mr. E. E. Green and to the Hon. F. Mackwood I owe many specimens from Ceylon. Major E. Stokes-Roberts, R.E., sent me several collections made in the Anaimalai and Niligiri Hills in Southern India. These were particularly valuable to me for comparison with the northern Indian forms.
I have to thank the Authorities of the British Museum for the privilege of access to the magnificent series of Indian butterflies contained in the National Collection, and I am specially grateful to Sir G. Hampson and Mr. F. Heron for the facilities afforded me for their examination. Mr. Heron has aided me in every possible way, and his intimate knowledge of many groups of butterflies has been most kindly and unreservedly placed at my service.
The National Collection has of late years been greatly increased and enriched by the donations of the Godinan, Leech, Crowley, and Elwes collections; and it is fortunate that so well-known an authority on Lepidoptera as Mr. Elwes should have undertaken the re-arrangement of the vast material thus brought together. For me it was specially fortunate that previous to commencing the writing of this volume the arrangement of several of the groups of the Nymphalidæ should have been completed. I had thus the advantage of Mr. Elwes’ large experience to guide me.
Turning to books, my obligations to the two previous works on Indian Butterflies have to be acknowledged. I am greatly indebted to the information contained in Mr. Moore’s great work, the ‘Lepidoptera Indica,’ as will be seen from the frequent quotations from and references to the volumes so far completed. Of the three volumes issued of the ‘Butterflies of India,’[1] the first two are completely out of date and, I believe, out of print. Col. Marshall and Mr. de Nicéville were pioneers in the systematic investigation of the Indian Lepidopterous Fauna; and the impulse given to the study of Indian butterflies by the publication, by the two authors conjointly, of the first volume of the ‘Butterflies of India, Burma and Ceylon,’ and, by the late Mr. de Nicéville alone, of volumes II. and III. cannot be rated too highly. De Nicéville’s enthusiasm communicated itself to others, and his ever ready and generous help encouraged many who, like myself, feel that his early death has been almost an irreparable loss to Indian Entomology. Had my late friend lived, the compilation of the present work would never have been attempted by me; it would have been in his far abler hands. As it is, it will be good news to many that the Trustees of the Indian Museum
- ↑ Vol. I. by Col. G. F. L. Marshall and L. de Nicéville; vols. II and III. by L. de Nicéville.
