8 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
From this it appears that in the low-country, especially at Trinco- 
malee, the male form is, generally speaking, not less abundant than 
either of the other two. At Colombo both P. aristolochie and P. 
hector are common, the former being exceedingly so. Most of the 
Trincomalee specimens came from close to the shore, between Forts 
Frederick and Ostenberg. The ground here is moderately open and 
dotted about with patches of scrub. P. polytes was abundant in 
September, but the female insect is difficult to catch, as it keeps 
flying rapidly across the open and diving into the heart of one 
thorny scrub patch after another, doubtless in search of the food 
plant. I managed to catch but a very small percentage of those 
I saw. Of the females (which were less numerous than the males), 
that resembling the male was far the most abundant, and was 
distinctly more numerous than the other two female forms together. 
Of these two, I caught more of the hector form than of the aristo- 
ochize form, because the former is more easily distinguished from — 
the male. Wherever there were several flies to chase I gave the 
preference to the female, and I have no doubt that I sometimes 
mistook the aristolochiz form for a male polytes, with which it can 
be easily confused at a short distance away. On the whole, after 
many hours spent on this collecting ground, I came to the conclusion 
that, though the hector form may have been slightly more common, 
these two forms occurred in almost equal numbers. The relative 
abundance of these forms is of interest in connection with the . 
occurrence of the models P. hector and P. aristolochie. The former 
is a common insect in this locality, though at the time I was 
there it was certainly not nearly so common as P. polytes. Of P. 
aristolochie, I never saw a single specimen during the whole of the 
time I was in Trincomalee, though I was always on the look out 
for it. | 
In Colombo, P. aristolochie is very abundant, and P. hector is not 
uncommon, though not nearly so abundant as its relative. One may 
see a dozen or more of the former to one of the latter. My experience 
of this locality as regards P. polytes was that the male form and the 
hector forms were about equally abundant, and that the aristolochic 
form was distinctly scarcer. Col. Manders, to whom I mentioned 
this, expressed himself of the same opinion. 
Higher up, at Kandy and Peradeniya, P. hector becomes very 
scarce, while P. aristolochie is exceedingly abundant. Nevertheless, 
the hector form of P. polytes is certainly more numerous than the 
aristolochize form. During the month I spent in this part of the 
country [ never saw either the aristolochiz form of P. polytes or 
P. hector. Higher up-country, at Hakgala and Pundaluoya, P. 
hector is no longer found. Yet if one may judge by the samples 
procured from these parts, the hector form is distinctly the commonest 
form of polytes female. 
