34 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIX. 



affected by these reptiles. So it happens that the Satyrincc are the 

 most heavily victimised of all because of their sedentary habits in 

 corners and amongst leaves and rubbish on the ground. It is not 

 uncommon, however, to see a lizard with its sharp eyes and intimate 

 knowledge of the ways of its prey completely nonplussed by a Mela- 

 nitis ; it has been seen to settle among dead leaves, the protective 

 colouring above alluded to blending so admirably with surroundings as 

 to render detection even at its hands impossible. Once among the 

 sand hillocks blown up by the wind in a desert in Sind, a somewhat 

 inferno-like paradise of fossorial wasps, ants and certain other sun- 

 loving insects besides various sorts of lizards, one of the last, most 

 nimble of its kinds, was seen to start in pursuit of a Painted Lady 

 ( Vanessa cardan] that happened just at that moment to fly over its 

 head well up in the air. The butterfly disappeared over a sand-hillock 

 but not quickly enough to keep out of sight of the lizard which, on 

 first spying the passing form against the clear sky, had set off in liot 

 chase from under a shady Heliotrope on a sandy slope down into a 

 hollow and up on to the crest of an adjacent mound : whence, so great 

 was the impetus, it took a flying leap of some two or three feet out 

 into the air, landing very nearly at the same time as the butterfly 

 and close to it on a flat piece of baked soil below. Without 

 a moment's delay, in fact all in the same breath so to speak, it had 

 pounced on and seized the insect before it had hardly time to close 

 its wings. From which it would seem that lizards are enemies not to 

 be despised even by the strongest winged and most restless of our 

 butterflies. The particular lizard referred to is Agama isolepia, 

 Bouleng. 



Flies (Diptera) and Dragonflies [Neuroptera-Odonata) must also 

 be reckoned amongst the enemies of the butterfly. Amongst the 

 former there is one predaceons grouj) which must account for many 

 deaths, namely : the Robber-flies or AsUidce. One single specimen, 

 perched upon a twig of vantage in this same Sind desert, was 

 observed to catch and eat, in the space of an hour or so, no less than 

 half a dozen small Lyceenids of the species Chilades trochilu.s. 

 Dragonflies, in the same place, were seen hawking and eating the 

 same little butterfly which swarmed there in great numbers, where the 

 semi-creeping Jndigofira with its bright red spikes of flowers offers 



