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THE COMMON BUTTERFLIES OF THE PLAINS 



OF INDIA. 

 By L. C. H. Young, b.a., f.e.s., f.z.s. 

 With Plate 1. 

 Pakt I.— Introductory. 

 The object of this series of articles on the common butterflies of 

 India is to encourage those who have a genuine desire to collect insects, 

 but are deterred from doing so either from the want of any handbook 

 from which they could name their captures, or from their inability to 

 understand the scientific technicalities in the literature to which they 

 already have access. 



It is hoped that having once named their early captures they will be 

 encouraged to go on collecting on a larger scale. 



At the same time, as the mere identification of specimens from 

 coloured plates would leave a collector practically as ignorant as when 

 he started, and it being moreover impossible to illustrate all the species 

 he would be likely to meet even in one season, it is advisable to describe 

 simply the general structure of butterflies on the variations of which 

 all classification, arrangement, and ultimately, nomenclature is based. 



A butterfly is divided structurally into three parts : the Head, Thorax 

 and Abdomen. 



The Head supports the following paired organs :— (1) the eyes, 



(2) the antennae or feelers, rising between them, consisting of a 

 great number of rings or joints which are more or less flattened, 

 swollen or grooved towards the tip, so as to form a club. The varia- 

 tions in the character of the club, as well as in the actual length of the 

 antennae as compared with that of the forewing, are often of consider- 

 able importance. 



Below and in front of these are the mouth organs which consist of 



(3) the labial palpi ; projecting organs of 3 joints generally thickly 

 scaled and varying considerably in shape. Their principal function is 

 apparently merely to protect (4) the proboscis or trunk which is really 

 a modification of a pair of organs — the maxillae — and can easily be 

 divided with the point of a needle. The front of the head above the 

 palpi is known as the frons. 



The Thorax consists of three segments, which, however, are general- 

 ly so thickly scaled that they have the appearance of one. The first 



