480 LYCANIDA. VIRACHOLA, 
grub, is no doubt well-adapted for the work required in making its home. The length of the 
larva when full-fed is rather more than an inch, and in colour and shape much resembles a 
ripe mulberry. It had a glossy shining skin, very knobby and indented all over, of a blue and 
purple colour, and its three posterior segments covered with a squarish shield with a raised 
dingy yellow rim to it. The larva bores for itself when quite young a little clean-cut round 
hole from the outer rind of the fruit of Punzca granatum to the heart. In this hole it spends 
its days with its head inside eating away at the green or ripening pips, and enlarging the hole 
as it increases itself in size. Sometimes three or four larvae may be found buried in one pomegra- 
nate. When at rest and not eating it plugs up the outer hole deftly with the shield on its 
tail. Itis a curious fact that the ants in the case of this species act as sweepers to the larva, 
hovering in attendance round the mouth of each hole and performing all the cleaning out 
_ operations with great regularity. The larva never leaves the fruit till full-grown [this is doubt- 
ful, I think it often seeks a fresh fruit, as I have frequently found a small fruit with the whole 
interior eaten and quite clean, and no pupa or pupa-skin, so in all probability the larva which 
inhabited that fruit had left it, and sought another], and then it descends the bark and seeks 
some crevice, crack, or knot inthe stem of the tree, and there undergoes its transformations. 
The ants, as far as I could see, did not convey the larvz to their nest at the foot of the tree, 
but as there were many larve on the tree and few pupz, some may have been removed to 
their nest. [These missing pupze were probably inside the fruit.] I was unable to find any 
eggs on the fruit or flowers, nor have I ever observed the ants “ milking ” any of the larvze, nor 
any appearance of tentacles being present. The larva spins a slight but strong web from 
its mouth with which it binds the fruit to the stalk to prevent its being blown off by the 
wind, and later uses the silk to fasten itself to by the tail when ready to change toa pupa. 
The pupa is also attached by two threads flatly to the trunk, and is of a pinkish-brown colour 
like the bark of the pomegranate tree, with various speckles and marks of a darker brown, 
and a dark dorsal line dividing it down the centre. The head of the pupa is covered with a 
kind of plate rounded in front, straight at the neck.” For my own part I have never seen ants 
attending the larvee, nor have I been able to find the special organs affected by them, and 
without these I fail to see why ants should take any trouble for the larvee. 
“Tt is almost impossible with the net to get a really good specimen of V. zsocrates or of 
V. perse. They are not only difficult to catch, but exceedingly swift, wary, and given to settling 
on high trees, but, when caught, difficult to secure without injury. There is a delicate bloom 
ona fresh specimen which the gentlest touch destroys. It is easily reared however. As is 
well known, the larva feeds inside the fruit of the pomegranate, and, some time before 
becoming a pupa, eats its way* through the tough rind and fastens the fruit with silk to its 
stalk, thus preventing it falling off in case it should wither before the Butterfly escapes, as 
it generally does. This operation is performed at night, and generally repeated night after 
night. I have taken a pomegranate infested with these larvze (several usually inhabit each 
fruit) and made it stand in an egg-cup; in the morning it was so securely fastened that in 
taking up the fruit I lifted the cup. Of all animal instincts that I have seen or heard of, this 
is one of the most astonishing, and certainly the most difficult to reconcile with any theory 
of development. As far as I have observed it, the larva never leaves its shelter except for 
the definite purpose so necessary to its safety, and it taxes ordinary ingenuity to suggest any 
possible conditions under which some larve might have performed the act in the first 
instance without purpose. I have found this butterfly pretty common in Bombay and Poona 
from December or January till March at least.” (Aztken, Journ. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., vol. i, 
p- 216, n. 46 (1886). 
: * This statement is slightly misleading. from_ the very earliest stages the young larva makes a hole in the 
fruit, which it gradually enlarges as it grows, and through whch it throws out its dejections. At any period 
the Siders leave the fruit in which it lives, and in fact not infrequently does so, entering a fresh fruit which 
suits it better. 
