THE COMMON BUTTEllFLIEU OF THE PLAINS OF INDIA. «)4.i 



;i : one pair in each at the base : iiiturapace 4 : throe pairs, one basal, one 

 medial, one postmcilial ; interspace 5 : two, the one at middle, the other 

 postmedial ; interspaces (J and 7 : two. one at base, one snbterminal ; all 

 these broken rings forming irregnlar ell'orts at transverse bands. Head 

 above dusky, the eyes ringed with white, the frons dusky black ; thorax 

 black with long, appressed hairs, blue in front, white behind ; abdomen 

 black powdered with white scales ; palpi : black. Helow : abdomen and 

 thorax whitish, the former with long hairs ; palpi speckled black and white 

 on end joint ; white on second joint. Antennju black, tinelj' ringed white ; 

 club long, orange on the inside, t'ilia with the basal half brown, preceded 

 by an anticiliary, brown line ; the extreme half grey. Female. Uppcrside : 

 hair-brown with a slight bronzey lustre, darkest along costa, the base of 

 wing powdered with violet-blue scales getting sparser outwards to a vary- 

 ing extent but always leaving a more or less broad, costal margin and a 

 rather broader, terminal margin of ground colour ; a slight anticiliary, 

 dark-brown line or narrow band. The discs of the wings have no appressed 

 hairs. Fore wing : cilia with basal half the colour of wing, the outer half 

 dark-grey. Hind wing : similar to fore wing but at the anal angle the 

 anticiliary, brown band or line finely bordered bluish-white in inter- 

 spaces 1,2, 3 ; a dusky spot, faint in 3, each one finely margined 

 bluish-white inwardly ; a frfnge of c27/rt-like, fine, white hairs along 

 inner margin and some appressed, white, longish hairs on hinder, basal 

 area. Underside : darker brown than in the male with no satiny gloss ; 

 markings similar but plainer ; sometime, on the hind wing, some black 

 scales at the outer margins of interspaces 1 and 3 as well as the black spots 

 in la and 2 ; also the terminal, white, fine line bordering the anticiliary, 

 brown line, is continued to the costa and the cilia are more largely white 

 at base. Head and eyes, thorax and abdomen as in the male ; antennte 

 with hardly any orange on the club. The wings similar in shape with the 

 same tufts at ends of veins 1-4 of the hind wing. Expanse : 28'32 mm. 



De Niceville says : " Lt/c(Pnest/ies lyccenina may be usually known from 

 emolus in the male by its brighter and lighter piirple coloration f»n the 

 upperside ; the apex of the fore wing is more acute, the outer margin 

 straighter ; in the hind wing the outer margin seems to be truncated, the 

 anal angle acute instead of being rounded. On the underside the markings 

 are usually more prominent, the discal band in both sexes on both «\ings is 

 more or less broken in the middle, very markedly so on the hind wing, 

 while in emolus it is continuous. In hiccenina there is almost always a 

 black spot near the base of the hind wing touching vein 8 which is never 

 present in emolus ; this spot is often small and inconspicuous, sometimes 

 absent altogether ; similarly also the subanal, black spot is sometimes 

 entirely absent ; and this latter variation has been described as a distinct 

 species by Mr. Moore iLyc(Pnestkes orissica, Moore, Journ. A. S. B., vol. iii 

 Jit, 2, p. 23.) Habitat: Orissa. Expanse: Male, 99 of an inch equalling 

 i:2"5 mm. It is always a fact that, in undersized specimens, spots and mark- 

 ings tend to disappear. Colonel Bingham says : " the short band on the 

 discocellulars and the anterior portion of the discal band form two bran- 

 ches, the lower portion of the discal band the stem, of a rough Y-shaped 

 ligure" which they do, distinguishing the species at once from emolus. 



Larva. — This is of the ordinary wood-louse, shape, rather broad and stout, 

 and has each segment prominently swollen-looking, this being caused by 

 each segment rising from the front margin to the hinder margin where it 

 suddenly falls again : the thickening is rounded and not angled anywhere 

 and is most prominent between the dorsolateral lines on the dorsum, for 

 below that region the surface is more or less flat though still somewhat 

 higher than the actual margins of the segments ; the anal end shelves 



