280 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCTETY, 



form in the shape of a curved green leaf, which it imitated so exactly that I had 

 some difficulty in finding it in the sprig in which I knew it to be. 



The first of these larva; to assume the pupa form did soon the 9th August. 

 Two others when on the point of following its example a few days later, 

 unfortunately developed suicidal tendencies, and drowned themselves in the 

 water in which the stalks of their lime sprigs were immersed. The fourth 

 assumed the chrysalis form on the 28th August. The one who entered on 

 his pupa-hood on the 11th August emerged a perfect imago on the 20th, a 

 male of the species Papilio Pammon. Despite the habits acquired in youth, 

 it would appear that his long course of deception then ended, for he was like 

 nothing else that I know. But, had he been she, it would have continued to the 

 end of life. For, whether it is to protect herself from the attacks of some voracious 

 foe with a special liking for the flavour of Papilio Pammon, or from a feminine 

 vanity which leads her to prefer the brilliant colours of other species to the sober- 

 suited livery affected by the males of her own, or owing to the natural duplicity of 

 the wily sex born to deceive, or only because Mr. P. likes to see his wife brightly 

 dressed, I know not (I hope the last is the true reason), yet certain it is, as pointed 

 out by Col. Swinhoe in an interesting lecture on Mimicry in Butterflies for Protec- 

 tion, printed at p. 1G9 of the 2nd vol. of this Journal, "the female of Papilio 

 Pammon mimics two species, Papilio Diphilus and Papilio Hector." Which of 

 these, if either, will be mimicked by the imago I expect to result from my now sole 

 surviving pupa, I am anxiously waiting to see.* 



W. E. HART. 



Bombay, 29th Aug. 1889. 



* The imago appeared on 7th September, a female of the Diphilus type. 



ZOOLOGICAL NOTES. 



In the month of June 1888, I was standing one morning in the porch of my 



house, when my attention was attracted by a large dragon-fly of a metallic 



blue colour, about 2| inches long, and with an extremely neat figure, who was 



cruising backwards and forwards in the porch in an earnest manner that seemed 



to show he had some special object in view. Suddenly he alighted at the entrance 



of a small hole in the gravel, and began to dig vigorously, sending the dust in 



small showers behind him. I watched him with great attention, and, after the 



lapse of about half a minute, when the dragon-fly was head and shoulders down 



the hole, a large and very fat cricket emerged like a bolted rabbit, and sprang 



several feet into the air. Then ensued a brisk contest of bounds and darts, the 



cricket springing from side to side and up and down, and the dragon-fly darting at 



him the moment he alighted. It was long odds on the dragon-fly for the cricket 



was too fat to last, and his springs became slower and lower, till at last his enemy 



succeeded in pinning him by the neck. He appeared to bite the cricket, who, after 



i a struggle or two, turned over on his back and lay motionless, either dead, or 



