﻿53 LEPIDOPTERA IN DIG A. 



Habitat. — Soutli India. 



Distribution. — " This is not by any means a rare butterfly in forest country in 

 the North Kanara District, especially towards the end of tlie rainy season" 

 (J. Davidson, J. Bombay N. H. S. 1896). Mr. S. N. Ward records it as " toler- 

 ably common above the Ghats, at Mangalore, Sircy, and Calicut, where I have found 

 the larva not unfrequently about August or a little later " (MS. Notes). Also 

 " common on the lower slopes of the Travancore Hills up to 1000 to 2000 feet " 

 (H. S. Ferguson, J. Bombay X. H. S. 1891, p. 9). It is common on the Western 

 slopes of the Nilgiris, and occurs throughout the District as a rare straggler" 

 (G. Hampson, J. A. S. Beng. 1888, 354). " There are numerous specimens in the 

 Indian Museum, Calcutta, from Calicut, and Trevandrum. It also occurs in the 

 Wynaad and North Kanara " (Butt. India, ii. 149). 



Habits of Imago. — " Its grand spread of wing and bold flight always arrests 

 attention. The manner of its flight is the same as that of Limenitis, Athyma, and 

 some other genera, — a jerky stroke at short intervals between which the wings are 

 held stifily outstretched and pointing a little downwards, but those genera lack the 

 power of Parthenos. Sometimes a solitary one is met with travelling across open 

 plains, but we do not know that it migrates " (Davidson, I.e.). 



Food-plant.— Mr. Davidson says (J. Bomb. N. H. S. 1890, 274), " We got only 

 a few larvas in September and October, and had difficulty in rearing them owing to 

 the scarcity, in the vicinity of Karwar, of its food-plant, a creeper, with large thick 

 elliptic leaves, belonging, we believe, to the Cucurbitaceas." 



Of our illustrations of this species on Plate 206, fig. 1 is a reproduction of Mi-. 

 Davidson's drawings of the larva and pupa in the Bombay Nat. Hist. Society's 

 Journal ; fig. la is a copy of the late Mr. Ward's Calicut drawing of the larva and 

 pupa, and fig. lb, c, that of the male upperside and female underside. 



PARTHENOS GAMBRISIUS (Plate 207, figs. 1, la, $ "}). 



Papilio Gamhrisius, Fabricius, Mant. Ins. p. 12 (1787) ; Ent. Syst. iii. 1, p. 85 (1793), ? . 



Minetra Gamhrisius, Doubleday, Catal. Lep. Brit. Mus. pt. 1, p. 86 (1844). Butler, C'atal. Fabr. 



Lep. B. M. p. 101 (1869). 

 Parthenos Gamhrisius, Moore, Catal. Lep. Mus. E. I. Company, i. p. 148 (1857). de Nictville, Butt. 



of India, etc., ii. p. 147 (1886). 

 Parthenos apiealis, Moore, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1878, p. 829. 



Imago. — Male and female. Upperside dark olive-green ; cilia alternately black 

 and white. Forewing with two short black streaks from the base, the upper one 

 extending along both sides of the median vein to its first branch and giving off 

 within the cell a curved fine line to the subcostal veinlet, followed across the cell by 



