194 RHOPALOCERA MALAYANA. 



^mf^ff^rm 



s-r<(^I&h. The larvte are ouisciform, or shaped like woodlice,* and their 



habits (as far as our present sHght knowledge allows us to form an 

 opinion) are most interesting. Thus one Indian species, Deudorix 

 (Virachola) isocrates, Fabr., has been described by Prof. Westwoodf as 

 residing " within the pomegranate in the caterpillar state, several 

 (seven or eight) being found in one fruit ; in which, after consuming 

 the interior, they assume the chrysalis state, each having first gnawed 

 ''Zu^^^Zr'ij'Z:^^. a hole through the rind of the fruit for the escape of the future 

 x-Moore,cat.Lep.Mns.E.i.c.) j^^^^g^.g^^ ^^^^ carefully attached the footstalk to the branch by a coating 



of silk to prevent its falling." The late Dr. Thwaites I has given some interesting facts. He 

 states : — " It is difficult to realize that the larvae of some species of these lovely Ltjccenidce, such 

 as Ainbliipodia, &c., are carnivorous or even cannibal in their habits, and do not hesitate to eat 

 their own brethren of the same brood, when any of the latter are commencing their change 

 into the inactive chrysalis state, with their consequent inability to protect themselves from 

 their voracious kindred, who devour them with avidity. Nature, however, finds a protection for 

 these said helpless individuals, in the instinct of a species of ant {Formica smaragdina, Fabr.j, 

 which, finding a substance most palatable to it, secreted naturally from a glandular defined 

 spot upon the bodies of these helpless larvaj, takes possession of them as ' cows,' surrounding 

 each separate one and the leaf on which it had been feeding with a few silken strands of 

 its web, protecting them jealously, and attacking most fiercely any living thing intruding 

 upon them."§ 



In the perfect insect the subcostal nervules number only three or four, || and I have myself 

 found these, both with regard to number and position, as excellent characters in the separation 

 and identification of genera. IT Many more genera undoubtedly exist than have hitherto been 

 used in the systematic classification of the Lijccciiidtc, and this could only have been expected 



* The character on which I>r. Horsfiekl described the Lyccenidit as belonging to his "vermiform stii-ps" or family 

 (see his Deser. Cai. Lep. lus. Mus. E.I.O. pp. 20, 58 and 04). These larvie induced Mr. Swainson, insphed by the views 

 of Macleay, to trace some fanciful analogies by their resemblance to sometimes " a little tortoise " or to "armadillos." He 

 considered theh principal analogy, however, in the Annulosa to be found in the Vermes, and remarked, " Now the only 

 ditTerence between the general form of these tortoise-like caterpillars and that of the common earthworm is this — that in the 

 former the body is excessively contracted, whereas in the latter it is necessarily lengthened : the pointed extremities of the 

 liead and of the tail, in both annuals, is a common character, which, as we have already seen, belongs to no other type of 

 larva' of insects or of vertebrate animals ; this at once accounts for the excessive length of body possessed by all the gnawing 

 quadrupeds {Glires, Linu.), and by all the birds in the order of waders {Grallatorcs)." — (Hist. & Nat. Airang. Ins. p. 60). 



I Trans. Ent. Soc. vol. ii. pp. 1 — 8 (1837), and Gen. Diurn. Lep. p. 468. 



I It is to bo earnestly hoped that the entomological observations of this good observing uaturahst have been 

 recorded and preserved, so that their futm'e pubhcation may give us a contribution to the real description of the Lepidoptera 

 of Cejdon. 



jJiMoore's Lep. Ceyl. i. p. 70. — Mr. Geo. Dimmock (' Psyche,' vol. iii. p. 395) states that " the larvae of certain species of 

 Lycwna have been fomrd to attract ants, on account of an openmg upon the dorsum of the eleventh segment, which gives out 

 a licpiid apparently containing sugar. Upon the twelfth segment, and evidently connected in fimction with the opening above 

 mentioned, are two protrusile organs covered with fine hairs. The fact of ants being attracted to these larvie was first observed, 

 so far as I can learn, by Esper." 



II In this statement I am only in apparent disagreement with Messrs. Marshall and De NicevLUe, who (Butt. Ind., 

 Biu'm. & Ceyl. vol. i. p. 18) describe the subcostal nervure as " emitting only two or three branches," as those authors with 

 other authorities prefer to consider as the termination of the subcostal nervure, what I describe — and not alone — as an 

 additional nervule. I cannot, however, agree with my fi'ieud Mr. Moore in treating as a fourth or fifth subcostal ner%ide what 

 seems clearly the upper discoidal nervule, a comse of treatment already repudiated by Hewitson (lUs. Dim-n. Lepid. p. 214 

 (1878), but still continued by Mr. Moore, in his ' Lepidoptera of Ceylon,' which necessitates my diagnosis of genera disagreeing 

 with his own, though I refer to such in the synonymy. 



•i I have not found the difficulty related by Mr. Hewitson, viz. " The branches from the subcostal nervure, which are 

 such an assistance in determining the position of genera with regard to each other in other famiUes, here avail little, and differ 

 in the sexes of the same species" (Introduction to Illustr. Diurn. Lepid. — Lycsen.). 



