■312 NOVITATES ZOOLOOICAE XX^^. 1019. 



emerge within three weeks or so. Once the food-plant is known and the season 

 rightly gauged, an expedition for the ova and larvae of hyppason is always well 

 rewarded, even in localities where one never sees the butterfly on the wing. 



From the first days of April to the middle of May 1913 I took as many as 

 40 ova and larvae of this species on all sides of Para, the Guama region, Murutucu, 

 Utinga, Souza, Curro, and on the adjacent Ilha das On9as, but never on any 

 other plant but Piper belemense. This, as its name indicates, is a local plant 

 possessing large glossy leaves. It grows plentifully in almost every swampy 

 district, and is easily rooted up to grow temporarily in a kerosene tin and serve 

 as a food-supply for one's captured larvae. I find this to be much the best 

 way in Para for rearing most larvae associated with herbaceous plants, and 

 invariably keep a stock of Aristolochias and small serviceable trees in the corner 

 of my backyard and bathroom. 



The egg of hyppason is large and yellow, and made to look even larger and 

 deeper in tone by the imposition of a heavy, wax-like substance capping tlie 

 top and studding the sides with three circular lobes, which protrude more than 

 the usual vertical ribs. 



It is invariably laid upon the mid-rib and upper surface of one of the tender 

 green leaves, where it is easily detected ; and the minute accuracy with which 

 this butterfly always chooses the ideal spot upon which to deposit an egg is 

 a very beautiful feature. 



The young larva shortly after emergence consumes the greater portion 

 of the egg-shell and its wax-like covering ; it then takes to the leaf, and with 

 increasing growth is found lower on the plant, eating the larger, darker, and 

 more matured leaves. 



Throughout the first four stages of its larval existence it is of the '" bird's 

 dung " design and coloration — a yellowish olive-brown with white on the 

 posterior segments, the dorsal area being doubly intersected in the centre by a 

 couple of oblique white stripes running parallel to each other, and adorned on 

 the side with a broad spiracular white band. AVhen young it has prominent 

 tubercles crested with bristles. In the final stage some of the dorsal tubercles, 

 though disproportionately small, are still visible ; and the very oUy appearance 

 which it formerly possessed gives place to a velvety skin of the richest brown 

 with minute touches of violet. All the light portions now partake of a delicate 

 tone of lemon-yellow inclining to green towards the middle, and becoming 

 creamy on approaching pupation. It always lives fuUy exposed upon the upper 

 surface of a leaf, and in the final instar presents a very striking appearance. 

 The pupa is like a piece of brown stick, rather long, uniformly tapered off 

 to the anal extremity, surmounted by a stout thoracic hump, and only less 

 prominently " eared " than thoas. 



A varying amount of pure white and a touch of green mark the abdominal 

 segments dorsall}^ and once I had a pupa which remained a bright grass green, 

 a light yellow taking the place of white in the colour scheme. I never found the 

 pupa at large, so that I cannot give its favoured situations, but they doubtless 

 correspond to those chosen by Papilio machaon in the Broads of Norfolk and 

 the Fens of Cambridgeshire. The entire cycle of changes from egg to butterfly 

 is, like others of the genus, often accomplished in little more than 50 days. 



Reverting to the young larvae, living as they do in such exposed positions 

 upon the upper surfaces of smooth leaves with very little of a foothold of silk, 



