206 LYCAINIDA. AMBLYPODIA, 
it is later on as a butterfly. I think this will be found true of very many of the larve of the 
Lycenide, which, as far as my experience goes, vary in coloration and markings in the most 
extraordinary and puzzling manner. 
Little need be said about this common butterfly with regard to its distribution in India. 
It occurs almost everywhere, except at very great elevations in the Himalayas, and in perfectly 
desert regions. It most probably feeds on a great many leguminous plants, and hence can exist 
almost everywhere. It varies but little except in size, though curious aberrations or ‘sports is 
are not very infrequent. Its flight is very rapid but shortly sustained (except when migrating ?), 
and it frequently settles. Colonel Lang reports that at Naini Tal large flights come up in April 
from the plains flying northwards. Mr. P. W. Mackinnon has remarked the same thing 
at Masuri in the Spring. If the species is given to migrating, this habit would, in conjunction 
with the almost universal presence of some species of plant on which the larva can subsist, help 
to account for its wide distribution in the old world. 
The figure shows the upper and undersides of a male specimen from Bholahat in my 
collection. 
An apparently allied species, or. more probably, an aberration or “sport” of P. beticus, has 
been described as telow from a single specimen from the Malay Peninsula.* 
The fifth division that I have made in the Indian ZycauideI call the Amblypodia 
group, and it contains nine genera. The first two genera, Amblypodia, Horsfield, and /raota, 
Moore, may be known from all the other Indian genera, except Zesius, Hiibner, by having four 
subcostal nervules (excluding the terminal portion of the subcostal nervure, often called an 
aéditional nervule) to the forewing in the male, and three in the female. The additional 
nervule possessed by the male in these genera is very short, and I am quite at a loss to 
understand why that sex should alone possess it, its wings being no broader— thus requiring 
no additional support—than in the female, but being on the contrary, as is usual in that 
sex, less broad. In both sexes of Amb/yfodia the terminal portion of the subcostal nervure 
ends on the outer margin some distance below the apex of the wing; this also is the case in 
Jraota in the male only ; in the female of /raofa, as in all the genera of the Indian Zycenide 
which have preceded it (except Améblyfodia), it ends at the apex of the wing. In these two 
genera not only is there no upper disco-cellular nervule to the forewing, a feature common to 
all the other members of the family Zycenide as far as I am aware, but the middle disco- 
cellular is also wanting, the lower disco-cellular being alone left. In Améd/ypfodia the upper 
discoidal as usual originates from the subcostal nervure some distance before the apex of the 
discoidal cell, the lower discoidal is given off from the upper discoidal, and is at first deflected 
obliquely downwards, its basal portion apparently forming a middle disco-cellular nervule. In 
Jraota the arrangement is again different, the discoidal nervules having almost a common origin, 
so there is no pretence even of a middle disco-cellular. These two genera are certainly the 
most aberrant in venation of all the genera of the Indian Zycenid@. The male in Amblypodia 
has no secondary sexual characters ; both sexes have a lobe to the hindwing, with a rather broad 
but short tail beyond from the termination of the submedian nervure. The males are dark 
purple or rich ultramarine blue on the upperside, with no markings, beyond an outer black 
border. The underside of both sexes is without defined markings, but is more or less mottled 
and blotched with brown of various shades, and resembles a dead leaf very closely, a mid-rib 
like band crossing the wings as in the genus Xa/lima, Westwood, from the apex of the 
* Polyommatus bagus, Distant, Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist., fifth series, vol. xvii, p. 532 (1886) ; idem, id., 
Rhop. Malay., p. 457, n. 2, pl. xliv, fig. 13, female (1886). Hanitrar: Province Wellesley. EXxPANSE: Female, 
zr2inches. DescripTION: ‘FEMALE. UpperRsipg, doth wings closely resembling those of the same sex of P. 
beticus, Linnzus. UNDERSIDE, both wings pale brownish-ochraceous, with the following linear brownish fascize 
margined with greyish:—two at the end of the discoidal cells and two submarginal fascia, the innermost broadest. 
Hindwing with two large, marginal, blackish spots, containing a few scattered greenish scales, inwardly mar- 
gined ate | pale reddish-ochraceous, and separated by the first median nervule, Body above more or less con- 
colorous with the wings, beneath with legs greyish-white; /egs more or less streaked with brownish.’ (Diés- 
Zant, 1. c. in Rhop. Malay.) 
