454 JO URN A L, B03IBA Y NA TURA L HISTOPx Y SOCIETY, Vol, XIX. 



JTahhs. — The description of the larva as given by Moore is not 

 sufficient to distinguish it from that of drypetis and, no doubt, ther 

 are very similar. The food plants are grasses. The butterfly occurs 

 in Central and Southern India and on the West Coast as far north a& 

 Mount Abu in Gujerat. This is the weakest flier of the three species^ 

 and is less of a forest and hill species than either of the other two ; 

 it also keeps much more to the ground, frequenting grassy places. 

 It is not often seen in the heavy jungles of the hills much south of 

 Bombay. 



i8. Melanitis ismene, Cramer (PI. D, fig. 22). — Male and female in. 

 the wet season have the forewing with the apex subacute, the termen slightly 

 angulated just below the apex, or straight. Upperside brown. Forewing with 

 two large subapical black spots, each with a' smaller spot outwardly of pure 

 white inwardly bordered by a ferruginous interrupted lunule ; costal margin 

 narrowly pale. Hindwing with a dark, white-centered, fulvous- ringed ocellus- 

 in interspace 2 near the termen, other ocelli sometimes showing through from 

 the underside. Underskle paler, densely covered with transverse dark-brown 

 .strije ; a discal curved dark-brown narrow band on forewing continued on to" 

 hindwing and a postdiscal similar band on the forewing followed by a series 

 of ocelli, that in interspace 3 the largest of four, six on the hindwing, the 

 apical and subtornal the largest. The discal bands may be obsolescent, some 

 of the ocelli may be wanting. 



In the dry season the forewing has the apex obtuse and more or less falcate ; 

 termen after the falcation may be straight or sinuous, L'pperside ground- 

 colour similar to that in the wet-season form though somewhat darker in 

 fresh specimens, the markings, especially the ferruginous lunules inwardly bor- 

 dering the black subapical spots on the forewing, larger, more extended below 

 and above. Hindwing : ocellus in interspace 2 absent, posteriorly replaced by 

 three or four minute white subterminal spots. Underside varies in colour great- 

 ly in shades of ochreous-brown, yellow, grey-black, nearly always with the 

 discal and postdiscal fascise distinctly defined and darker than the ground- 

 colour and the ocelli completely disappear. Antennse, head, thorax and 

 abdomen in both seasons is brown or greyish brown ; antenna? annulated white, 

 ochraceous at apex. Exp. 70-80mm, 



Larva. — Body spindle-shaped though approaching cylindrical ; tail end pro- 

 duced into two nearly parallel conical points directed straight backwards, as 

 long as the head-horns, squarely separated at base and set with hair-bearing 

 tubercles like the bodj'. The head is square, higher than broad, with a convex 

 face and two perfectly cylindrical diverging horns, one on vertex of each lobe, 

 widely and squarely separated at bases, lying in the same plane as the face 

 and about three-quarters as long as height of head ; the head is thick, the 

 surface is finely rugose, shiny, covered thickly with fine white hairs ; the horns 

 set with small tubercles each surmounted by a white or black hairj; colour of 



