NYMPHALID^. SATYRIN^. MELANITIS. 257 



specimens are covered with irregular black or dark brown spots and blotches resembling fungi 

 on dead leaves ; some specimens have one or two white spots on the forewing, and a submar- 

 ginal series of six more or less perfect ocelli on the hindvving, these latter being more usually 

 represented merely by whitish spots, and are always more or less blurred. In all tlie speci- 

 mens we have seen (he foi rwing is more or less falcate (sometimes almost truncate) at apex, 

 and caudate in the hindwing. The female is somewhat paler, and the ferruginous markings 

 are rather more diffused. 



" Larva elongated, thickened in the middle, pubescent ; head large, surmounted by two 

 short pubescent red processes ; last segment also with two processes ; pale green with longi- 

 tudinal rows of whitish dots ; dorsal and lateral line darker green ; head bluish, face striped 

 with green and olack. Feeds on Gramineie. Pupa green, cylindrical j head and thorax 

 obliquely flattened." {Moore, 1. c.) 



M. ismene appears to be everywhere the commonest species of the genus. The upperside 

 is very fairly constant in colouration throughout its range, some specimens, however, 

 having the ground-colour darker than others ; but the underside varies strangely even in the 

 same locality ; in fact no two specimens can be found exactly alike, and in their markings and 

 lints they harmonise so completely with the autumnal colouration of decaying vegetation that 

 when settled amongst dead leaves and dried up grass it is almost impossible to see them. 

 Its range scarcely extends into the North-West Himalayas. Mr. C. J Rodgers took it below 

 Dalhousie. In four years collecting in the neighbourhood of Simla Mr. de Niceville only 

 took two specimens at a low elevation in November. The Indian Museum has a single 

 specimen from Mussoorie, and to the eastward it becomes increasingly commoner. Similarly 

 in the plains it is comparatively rare in the Punjab ; in the North-Western Provinces it is 

 much commoner, but throughout Bengal and Central and Peninsular India it is very common, 

 and we have specimens from Assam, Sylhet, Cachar, Burma, Ceylon, and the Andaman Isles, 



The figure on Plate XII shows the upper and undersides of a male specimen from Calcutta 

 ill Major Marshall's collection. An outline figure of this species is given on Plate I. 



250, Melaaitis duryodaaa, Feider. 



Cyilo duryodana, Feider, Reise Nov., Lep., vol. iii, p. 464, n. 786 (1867). 



Habitat : Sikkim, Cachar, Upper Assam, Khasi hills, Orissa, Burma and Upper 

 Tenasserim. 



Expanse : 29 to 3"i inches. 



Description: "Male: Upperside swarthy, obscurely variegated with swarthy and hoary 

 near the external margin (especially on the hindwing). Foir<.ving with the subcostal area increas- 

 ingly deep fuscous, with an oblique yellow bar-shaped fasciole scaicely reaching beyond the 

 lower discoidal nervule to the hindward, and spreading over the apical third at the costa near the 

 cell ; immediately below that two wide black spots, defined externally with fulvous powdering, 

 the upper rather large, the lower much larger, minutely pupilled with ochraceous. Hindnnng 

 with three hinder ochraceous dots, obscurely circled with fuscous. Underside densely 

 variegated with ferruginous-brown, with ochraceous external dots. Fortxving with three costal 

 fascioles, and the terminal area of the costa variegated with ochraceous. Hindwing with a 

 subangulate ferruginous discal streak, the costal border and a streak before the margin 

 ochraceous, variegated. Female: Upperside paler than in the male. Forewing vixlXx the 

 yellow fasciole much broader, paler. Underside much paler, obsoletely variegated. Hind- 

 wing with a blackish discal spot near the streak. Larger than C. banksia, [Fabricius, an 

 African form of M. ismene'] ; all the wings longer, and more strongly angulated." {Feider, 1. c.) 



The Indian Museum, Calcutta, contains three males from Sibsagar, two from Khurda in 

 Orissa, and one from Kulu. They are easily distinguished from the other species in the 

 genus by their rich deep ferruginous brown uppersides, and in having a distinctly lighter outer 

 border to both wings, thickly powdered (especially in the hindwing) with darker atoms. The 

 straight, sharply inwardly defined ferniginous bar extending from the upper black spot almost 



