184 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
THE RHoPALOCERA OF JAvA.—Publication of the first of a series 
of illustrated monographs on Java butterflies has been recently 
announced. It treats of the Pieride, and is by M. C. Piepers and 
P. C. Snellen, with the collaboration of H. Fruhstorfer. The 
publisher is Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Holland. 
NorTEs ON THE Lire-HIstorY oF Capys Dissunotus. — Some 
years ago Mr. A. D. Millar, of Durban, Natal, discovered the 
above-named butterfly which has, I believe, since been described, 
although it does not appear in Mr. R. Trimen’s book on the 
‘ Butterflies of South Africa.’ The egg is laid upon the outside of 
the pod of the plant Protea hirta. The young larva, which is nearly 
black in colour, after leaving the egg-shell, immediately bores into 
the pod, which is then green and soft, feeding and making a tunnel 
in a downward direction. There is not very much change in the 
colour of the larva, but as it increases in size it gradually becomes 
lighter. When full-grown it is about one inch in length, very fat, 
slug-like in shape, and very much resembles Cossus ligniperda in 
colour when about half-grown. Having made a hole for the escape 
of the imago it changes into a brown pupa inside the pod. Like 
many of the Lycnide, both the larva and pupa are nearly always 
found accompanied by small brown ants which do not in any way 
injure either. The butterfly emerges about ten to fourteen days 
after the change to the pupal state. The plant grows upon the sides 
and tops of hills about one thousand feet above sea-level at Pinetown, 
Natal, some ten miles from Durban, and I have no doubt at other 
places as well. Those plants growing near the top of the hills are 
most favoured by the butterfly, and very few larvee were found in the 
pods near the base of the hills. The pods vary very much in size, 
and as the larva does not leave the one it first enters to go into 
another, this accounts for the great difference there is in the size of 
the perfect insect ; the large pods producing fine large insects, and 
the small ones just the reverse, in fact, some of the former are 
double the size of the latter. I never found more than one larva in 
a pod, and by the time the larva is full-fed the part of the pod it is 
then feeding upon is as hard almost as any wood. When I first 
found these larves I opened several of the pods, took out the larvae 
which I thought were going to pupate and put them in a chip box 
to do so. The following day I was very much surprised to find, first 
that the ants had found them out and got into the chip box (where 
they came from, I don’t know), and secondly, that out of ten larve 
only four remained—the other six had bored through the box. The 
fugitives I found near the top of the wall of the room in which I rear 
caterpillars, and the ants up there with them. In spite of feeding 
in pods the larve are still ichneumoned, and I have bred a good 
number of these parasitic flies. I found in all about thirty larve, and 
in March last reared about twenty-four specimens ; the remainder of 
the larvee were ichneumoned.—J. F. Leiau, F.E.S; Durban, Natal, 
May Ist, 1909. 
SHort Duration oF Haa-staGe or A. utMATA.—On Tuesday, 
June 15th, I took A. wlmata plentifully. A female began laying ova 
in a glass-bottomed box late in the afternoon and during the evening. 
