CARNIVOROUS BUTTERFLIES CLARK 451 



the adults inhabit the nests altogether as has been stated is almost 

 certainly incorrect. 



It seems a reasonable assumption that, if the caterpillars of this 

 species have the habits of the allied G. chinensis^ they may sometimes 

 be inadvertently entombed in shelters built by ants about colonies 

 of aphids, in which event tlie adults Avould be found therein im- 

 prisoned. 



AUotinus ho7'sfleldi. — Lieut. Col. C. T. Bingham in 1907 published 

 a communication from Col. H. J. W. Barrow, who wrote: "I don't 

 know whether you have observed the habits of a small plain butterfly 

 which I caught in Majmiyo. I watched it often in the jungle, some- 

 times for an hour at a time. It puzzled me at first to know why 

 it took such an immense time to settle. It would keep within 1 

 yard of a spot and almost settle, 20 times, perhaps, before it actu- 

 ally did. Its legs are immensely long, and I discovered why. It 

 settles over a mass of aphides and then tickles them with its pro- 

 boscis, just as ants do with their antennae, and seems to feed on their 

 exudations * * *. It would settle calmly over largish ants and 

 did not mind one or two actually standing up and examining its 

 legs to see who was there. The ants did not attack it in any way." 



AUotinus nivalis.— In 1910 Mr. Hamilton H. C. Druce published 

 a note communicated by Mr. J. C. Moulton on a lycaenid in attend- 

 ance oij an homopteron. 



Mr. Moulton showed Colonel Bingham's figure of AUotinus hors- 

 f.eldi attending an aphid to his two Dyak museum collectors, telling 

 them to look for an example of this in real life when collecting in 

 the jungle. He further explained that the species figured is a com- 

 mon one in Sarawak and that there was no reason why they should 

 not be able to observe this phenomenon if they waited and watched 

 the insect settle. For a month they were unsuccessful, although col- 

 lecting four or five daj's a week. At last, on December 31, 1909, one 

 of the collectors, Bigi bj^ name, came back triumphant with two 

 examples of AUotinus 7iivaUs (a smaller species than A. horsfieldi 

 but nearly allied) together with an homopteron. He told Mr. Moul- 

 ton that he had found the two butterflies hanging downward from 

 the underside of a thin twig of a " kapa " tree about 2 inches apart 

 and facing toward each other ; between them were two homopterons, 

 and each butterfly was engaged in slowly stroking the homopteron 

 nearest it with its tongue. The antenna? were in an upright position 

 as shown in Colonel Bingham's illustration. 



Mr. Moulton remarked that in Colonel Bingham's picture the 

 aphid is shown as firmly held between the fore legs of the butterfly 

 as if the " milking " operation were not particularly voluntary on 

 the part of the aphid. But his Dyak was quite positive that the 



