The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma/Butterflies/Volume 1/Preface

by Charles Thomas Bingham

 

PREFACE.

 

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In the present volume Col. Bingham has commenced the descriptions of the Indian Butterflies. It was at first hoped that two volumes would complete the series, but three will certainly be necessary if all the forms are dealt with. The next volume will, it is expected, contain, amongst others, the Papilionidæ and the Pieridæ.

For many years, in consequence of the late Mr. de Nicéville having undertaken to describe the Indian Butterflies, it was not thought desirable that the subject should be included in the present series. Unfortunately Mr. de Nicéville died in 1901, without having completed his work, and as he had urged, in a letter to the present editor, that Col. Bingham should, in case of his failure, supply his place, it has now devolved on the latter to complete the series. Since the first appearance of Marshall and de Nicéville's work on Indian Butterflies in 1882, so many additions have been made, and so many new forms have been described, that the species inhabiting the Indian Empire are far more generally known. To these Moore's great work, the 'Lepidoptera Indica,' has added several novelties.

The question of illustrating the present work has presented some difficulty. To figure animals so brilliantly variegated as Butterflies by black and white alone would have given a very poor idea of their colour, whilst at the same time the expense of procuring coloured representations of their forms would have greatly exceeded the price of the volume. It has consequently been arranged to represent some of the more important kinds by the three-coloured process, and it is hoped that entomologists in India will be satisfied with the work done by Mr. Knight, who has drawn the coloured figures, and Messrs. Hentschel Ltd., who have photographed them.

W. T. BLANFORD.

January 1905.