126 [June, 



them : SI sort of very soft, feathery white fungus which is a fe^A' milli- 

 metres in diameter, aud circular as a rule ; besides which, the circular 

 burrowings beueath the epidermis of leaves of minute Lepidopterous, 

 etc., larvae become quite white in the w^ithered leaf; so that the chalky 

 markings, so distinct on Melanitis asica in the cold-weather forms, 

 might be mistaken for this latter stjle of thing. The rains form of 

 M. varaha is all vermiculated underneath like Jeda. 



The two species of Kallima which 1 have bred from the egg are 

 K. loardi (cold-weather form = K. Iiorsfieldii) and Doleschallia 

 polibete ; the latter we always called the red Kallima. As 1 have been 

 transferred from Kanara, and am at present in this desert place, I 

 cannot do anything in the way of experiment as there is a great lack 

 of material and I have few- of my things with me, having left all my 

 collections, &c., down in Kanara. Our ways of breeding in Kanara 

 were to all intents and purposes quite natural as all the plants grew 

 immediately outside the bungalow which are situated in the jungles; 

 often, indeed, w^e just tied large nets over the trees on which the larvae 

 were feeding : this a propos of your remarks as to the time Atella 

 alcippe takes from the egg to the imago. 



With reference to the curled leaves : after the rains nearl}^ all 

 the leaves curl up in drying, and I have often been struck by the 

 curious resemblance some of them bear (especially when hanging in 

 a spider's web, &c.) against the trunk of a tree, surface of a rock, 

 branch of a tree, &c., to a Kallima or similarly peaked- and hook- 

 winged butterfly ; the resemblance in colour and shnpc is sometimes 

 so strong as to quite deceive one from a short distance. In the rains, 

 curled leaves are scarce in wet places like Kanara, as you may imagine. 

 Some favourite seats for Kallima butterflies are a tree-trunk, branch, 

 or perpendicular rock surface, also small masses and strings of dead 

 leaves hanging by remnants of old spider webs in the undergrowth in 

 the jungles. I have never seen a Kallima rest on the ground though 

 they often settle for a short time ; whereas Melanitis always rests on 

 the ground and, as your book says, generally in a half-lyiiig position 

 amongst the leaves, rarely upright. I have often looked in vain for 

 Satyrines that I have watched carefully settle without being able to 

 find them except after carefully scanning every inch of the ground. 



As to the habits of butterflies at different seasons, I do not think 

 there is any more activity during the dry season than during the wet 5 

 of course the number of insects about during the wet mouths is more 

 than double that which one sees during the dry mouths : this is 

 accounted for by the more prolific breeding owing to greater quantity 



