COMMON BUTTERFLIES OF THE PLAINS OF INDIA. 33 



power of resisting pressure. Try iind kill one of these insects by the 

 ordinary thorax-pressure sufficient for the ordinary butterfly : ten to 

 one it will, after lying seemingly dead in the hand, suddenly take to 

 its winfrs and leave in a hurry. Besides the faculty of resistance to 

 pressure, these insects possess the extra trick of shamming death when 

 in a tight place and this must be extremely useful to them in view of 

 the undoubted objection all predatory animals have (birds included) 

 of quitting hold of anything with life in it; for, of course, birds occa- 

 sionally make mistakes and catch an undesirable Danaine now and 

 then oven though they will not eat it. As mentioned already above, 

 the Omithoptera group amongst the Papdionidm are also protected 

 by this quality of tasting bad. Birds will not eat them, neither will 

 lizards willingly or readily, and this immunity is so useful that another 

 species of the same Family, not possessing the attribute, has arrived 

 at a more or less serviceable imitation of P. hector and P. aristolochioi 

 in colour and pattern. This other species is P. polytes. How the 

 imitation has been effected we do not know : the fact remains that 

 the resemblance exists and that it is useful for the safety of the species 

 may be assumed. In this case the females of P. poli/tes are only 

 thus favoured, there being two distinct protected forms, one resem- 

 bling P. hector^ the other P. aristolochice ; still a third form resembles 

 its own male which has a completely different aspect to the protected 

 forms, being plain black with a white band of spots across the hind- 

 wing continued as a border along the outer margin of the forewing. 

 In the Bombay Presidency where all three species are equally 

 common, the imitating forms of polytes are the common ones 

 while the form like the male is very scarce, in other parts of 

 India where the ornithopterine species are uncommon, these forms 

 are also scarce and the non-imitating one is most frequently met 

 with. There are a goodly number of species among the Papiliones^ 

 other than the one mentioned, which are imitators also, but imitators 

 of the various forms of DaDaince, not of members of their own 

 genus. 



Lizards are more destructive to larvse than to the winged 

 insects as it is only natural to suppose. However, they take consider- 

 able toll of certain species of butterflies, chiefly of such as spend 

 much of their time sitting on the ground, tree-trunks and other place? 



