100 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL MIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVI. 



thorax with its dorsal line steeper on the anterior portion than that of 

 segment 2, humped in middle; a good deal broader than segment 2, rather 

 pointed behind ; constriction behind it dorsally slight, laterally nothing ; 

 pupa highest at apex of thorax though, perhaps, thicker at segment 7 owing 

 to the ventral line not being quite straight ; abdomen circular in transverse 

 section running to a blunt, rounded point at anal end which is slightly 

 turned under. Surface shining, especially on thorax and wings, covered 

 with minute hairs under the lens, these hairs slightly longer at fore and 

 hinder extremities of the body. Spiracles of segment 2 longly oval, slight- 

 ly raised, short, white ; the other spiracles broadly oval, small and inconspi- 

 cuous, coloured like the body. Colour of pupa a rose-brown yeJlow on the 

 abdomen, dirty translucent-looking yellow on wings, thorax and head ; 

 spotted and blotched with black spots forming a dorsal and lateral, inter- 

 rupted line along back and sides of the abdomen ; ventrum light. L : 9 

 mm. ; B. 4 mm. ; H. 3*5 mm. 



Habits. — The egg is laid single amongst the flowers when they 

 a,re in bud ; the little larva on emerging from the egg, — it eats 

 its way out through the side as do nearly all these lycasnine cater- 

 jjillars — burrows into a bud and lives inside the flower, changing 

 from one to another as it finds it necessary, eating the carpels and 

 pistils. It eventually also pupates inside the flower or a flower-bud 

 <ind, as often as not, falls to the ground with it, even before 

 the change takes place. Sometimes it leaves the fallen flower and 

 pupates on the ground under leaves, &c., or in a small crevice 

 or hole. The attachment is by the tail and a body-band. 

 Vhe larva is sometimes attended by ants. The food plant upon 

 which the first specimens of the butterfly were bred was 

 Butea frondosa, the Flame of the Forest or, in the vernacular, 

 Pallas. The tree or shrub is well known from its masses of rose- 

 vermillion blossoms, each over two inches in length, and its deep 

 .;reen-black, velvety calyx. The flowers come out when the tree 

 is leafless and it is one of the most striking objects that attracts 

 1 he eye in the smaller, opener jungles of India — a sudden burst of 

 flame in the dun landscape of the dry, hot, leafless months of 

 I'ebruary and April. There are other plants also in the flowers of 

 which the larvae may be found and they are all, as far as is known, 

 of the same family as Bzitea : Leguminuseoe. Some of these are : 

 Pongamia glabra or the Indian Beech, Grotalaria of diff'erent species, 

 io which belong the Indian Hemp and so on. Thei'e is nothing 

 particularly characteristic about the habits of the larva to difier- 

 '■ntiate it from the most of the others belonging to the same sub- 

 family except, perhaps, that it gent>rally feeds inside the flowers which 

 it rarely leaves and pupates on the surface of the ground as often as 

 not. The butterfly is a fairly strong flier and the male attracts 

 notice by the glint of its deep metallic-blue upperside in the 

 chequered sunlight under the trees that grow along the sides of 

 tanks and water nallas wh ch constitute its favourite haunts in the 

 <lryer parts of the country. As a matter of fact it does not occur 

 in the very dry or desert tracts but, otherwise, is found all over 



