LYCANID. CATOCHRYSOPS. 185 
“Near to C. pandava, Horsfield. Male smaller than that species, of a paler shade of blue ; 
differing on the underside of the hindwing in the coalescing of the discal spots, and the anal 
spots being much smaller or absent altogether. The female on the upperside is of quite a 
different shade of blue, which colour reaches to the costa and is much nearer to the outer margin 
in the forewing, and covers all the hindwing except the costal margin, The marginal series of 
black spots are smaller, more regular in size, and the third from the anal angle not conspicu- 
ously crowned with orange as in C, pandava.” 
‘“‘T have taken numerous specimens of both sexes of this species in the cold weather in 
Calcutta, and the late Mr. G. Nevill took it at Moisraka. It occurs also rarely in Sikkim.” 
(de Nicéville, 1. ¢.) Since I described C. dengalia, 1 have carefully noted that it is only on the 
wing during the winter, and frequents the same Cicads which produce the wet-season form later 
on. I have no hesitation therefore in sinking C. dengalia as a seasonal form of C. pandava. 
The figure shews both sides of a female example of the dry-season form in my collection 
from the Dehra Dun. 
“LARVA. OQOnisciform; greenish or violet-brown above, with a dorsal darker brown line 
and white spots, and a yellow lateral line.” (J/oore, 1. c). “ Feeds on Cycadacee”(Thwaites). 
Larva when full-grown a little over half an inch in length, of two distinct colours, some being 
bright green, others of a dark reddish-purple (vinous), They are of the usual lyczenid shape : the 
head very small, black, shining, and hidden beneath the second segment, the third segment 
larger than the second, the other segments of about equal size, the anal segment flattened and 
rounded, divisions between the segments well-marked. The larva throughout is very rough, 
widely pitted or depressed, and covered with very minute white tubercles bearing very short 
fine hairs, neither the hairs nor the tubercles being visible without a lens. The body at its 
highest and widest part is wider than high. It is extremely variable in markings, hardly any 
two being exactly alike ; there is usually a dark dorsal, subdorsal and lateral line dividing the 
upper surface of the body into three equal areas, the dorsal and two subdorsal lines coalescing 
on the eleventh segment, and forming a broad band to the thirteenth. In some examples the 
divisions between the segments are marked with darker, and there is a subdorsal series of oblique 
dark lines one on each segment between the dorsal and subdorsal lines. The underside of the 
body and legs seem to be always pale green. The erectile organs on the twelfth segment very 
small. Feeds in Calcutta on Cycas revoluta. In Calcutta three species of ants attend this larva, 
which Professor Forel has identified for me as Prenolepis longicornis, Latreille, Wonomoriune 
speculare, Mayr, and Cremastogaster, n. sp.? ‘‘PuPA. Violet-brown, thick, head truncate.’ 
(Moore, 1. c.) Pupa. Of the usual lyceenid form, quite smooth, more or less fuscous, with a 
darker dorsal and subdorsal line, head-case somewhat square, thorax slightly humped and con- 
stricted posteriorly, spiracles pale. Though the larve swarm in April and May in Calcutta on 
the cultivated Cycads in gardens, eating the hardly-opened shoots or fronds, thereby utterly 
destroying the appearance of the plant for the year, I have never succeeded in finding the 
pupa on the plants, and can only conclude that the ants drive the full-grown larve down the 
stems of the plants into their nests, where the larve undergo their transformations. As far as 
I know, the Cycads are always cultivated garden plants in Calcutta, and I am not aware of any 
other plant on which C. Jandava feeds; though it must I think eat other things, as in 
Sikkim it is a very common species at low elevations, and I have never seen a Cycad 
there. : 
C. pandava is a much rarer species usually than either C. sfrabo or C. cnejus, owing I 
fancy to the usual scarcity of its food-plant, though where the latter occurs, the butterflies 
often swarm. It has also not such a wide range as those species, and does not extend beyond 
the Indian region into China and Australia as they do. 
751. Catochrysops nicola, Swinhoe. 
C. nicola, Swinhoe, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1885, p. 132, n. 56. 
HABITAT: Poona, December. 
EXPANSE! §, I‘2 inches. 
24 
