THE COMMON BUTTERFLIES OF THE PLAINS OF INDIA. 447 



found in the jungle-covered Ghats in Kanara District in Bombay, but are not 

 common even there ; it is the same with abseus, which is very rare. The 

 butterflies of this genus are all strong fliers with robust bodies and ample wings, 

 but none of them fly far at a time ; they are insects of the forest and live amongst 

 the trees, in foliage ; like AmUypodia and Lraota, they fly very fast but are slow 

 in getting up and settle suddenly on a leaf or twig or stalk in any position ; 

 walking slowly about at times and resting anywhere on leaf, stalk, twig or 

 branch with the wings closed over the body ; occasionally the males bask in the 

 smi on the upperside of a leaf with the wings partially open and they have been 

 seen sucking juices from wounds in tree trunks ; they never, seemingly, visit 

 flowers though they have (rarely) been noticed sucking moistm-e from the ground. 

 The larvae are abnormal in shape, being much flattened, they are all looked after 

 by ants and are given to hiding in leaves, slightly rolled or bent into rough cells 

 for the purpose, these cells fashioned with the help of silk emitted from the spin- 

 nerets; often the inside siu'face is also provided with a " bed " or silken carpet 

 on which the caterpiUer rests. The pupae are abnormal in being rather long, 

 from the fact that the anal segment is not tm'ned mider but is in a line with the 

 rest of the body, and it is always widened out to resemble a horse's hoof ; the tail 

 fixing is strong, the body-band moderately tight and the pupa can move up 

 and down rapidly from just in front of the end segment to produce a knocking 

 noise when distiu-bed. The transformation from larva to pupa takes place, 

 generally, in one of the larval cells ; ants also guard the pupa. The foodplants 

 are various and, at least in the case of centaurus and amantes, the choice of them 

 seems to depend more upon the presence of the ant-protectors than upon the 

 kind of tree as wiU be seen below. 



167. Arhopala centaurus, Fabricius — (PI. II, figs. 57 J, 57a 9)- — "Male 

 Upperside : both wings dark briUiant, violaceous-blue with very narrow, outer, 

 black markings : cilia brownish. Underside : both wings ochraceous -brown. 

 Fore wing with two looped spots margined pale bluish green in the cell and 

 a subquadrate spot inwardly margined with pale bluish green and outwardly 

 with greyish, at the end of the cell ; a waved, postmedial fascia margined 

 with greyish crossing the wing bej-ond the cell and the following spots mar- 

 gined with greyish : — one near the costa above the end of the cell and two 

 beneath the cell divided by vein 2 ; the apical third of the wing is somewhat 

 paler and contains a marginal and sub marginal, dark fascia. Hind wing ; with 

 the following spots and fasciae margined with greyish : — seven basal spots, a 

 medial, transverse fascia connected above at vein 7 with an imier, broken, 

 macular fascia extending to the inner margin of wing ; a marginal and two 

 submarginal, somewhat obscure fasciae ; tlu'ee transverse, marginal, metallic 

 greenish spots near the anal angle. Body and legs more or less concolourous 

 with the wings. — Female. Upjjerside : both wings violaceous-blue. Fore wing 

 with the costal and outer margins broadly fuscous. Hind wing ; with the costal 

 margin broadly, the outer margin narrowly, fuscou-J. Underside : both wings as 

 in the male. Expanse : 50 to 52 mm." 



De Niceville gives the above description of true centaurus, Fabricius on th*^ 

 authority of Distant who says that he made certain by comparing the type 

 in the Banksian collection in the British IMuseum. Distant says that Hewitson 

 confused matters by depicting the Avrong species as this. Then Felder described 

 it as nahula in 1860. Fabricius named it originally as Papilio cenlmirus in the 

 year 1775. Besides which Doubleday, in the year 1847, named it 2}^^udoc€n- 

 tatirus. Moore caUed it pirithous in 1881 and de NiceviUe and Wood-Mason 

 invented the variety corruscans in 1880. Swinhoe at the present time treats 

 centaurus, pirithous and coruscans as good species, saying that the latter two can 

 be easily distinguished from the first. From which it will be seen that a name 

 is not always as simple a thing to fix as it looks. Swinhoe considers that 

 typical centaurus does not occur in Bombay and considers that corruscans does. 



