104 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



also, and very large hornets, to say nothing of snakes, sometimes 

 emerge from these holes instead of Erebus, and lend anything 

 but a pleasing source of diversion to the operation. 



The high road, when reached, although dusty, has one side of 

 it lined by a labiate flower in full bloom, and here we first meet 

 with the Hesperid, Ismene Florestan, and its var. Valmaran ? 

 They are charming insects to make acquaintance with, and are 

 numerous. Poised at the flower-bells, with the bright white bar 

 vibrating on the hind wing, if cautiously approached, they are not 

 difficult of capture, and the veteran is soon pleasantly occupied, 

 adding also CalUdryas Florella, Eronia Lecla, E. Cleodora, and a 

 female Anthocharis lone, who all come dipping along, with a hover 

 from flower to flower, to sip and be otf again. Whilst he is 

 at work I stroll up to a bridge where a watercourse crosses the 

 road, a favourite spot of Papilio Pylades, and, as he is there, 

 I fetch up the veteran for a try ; but Pylades, circling and settling, 

 three of them, on the other side of the water, at an inconvenient 

 height, are too well occupied flirting with each other to bestow 

 any attention upon us. We try the long rod, but vote them "sour 

 grapes," and return to our bush-path. 



Leaving the road, a few steps carries us through a patch 

 of castor-oil and dhol, the remnant of an old coolie garden, to a 

 crossing lower down on the stream I have just mentioned, 

 and, on a patch of damp sand in the sedgy current, sit two 

 Painlio Policenes, drinking tlie moisture, whilst their delicate 

 tails keep up a continuous quivering motion ; with them are 

 a school of " whites." In quietly approaching we put up the 

 whites, wliich startle Policenes, and they are off" before we can 

 take them. On the margin of this stream, and at the edge of the old 

 coolie ground, we find a sort of yellow laburnum shrub with several 

 larvae of the orange tiger moth, Hypercompa Bellatrix, on it, and 

 in the course of our ascent of the opposite hill we take several 

 specimens, freshly emerged, of the imago of that species. The 

 next ten minutes is a scramble up a narrow path made by the 

 Kafirs and Bush-buck conjointly, which in the very nature of things 

 is not a happy hunting-ground ; but it leads to the open glades of 

 Kafir-Boom and Flat-crown, which are the special habitat of 

 Papilio Menestheus and P. Merope in this country side, and to 

 reach which has been the aim of our excursion in this direction. 



Before commencing operations on Menestheus, we determine, 



