( xxvij ) 



" March 25th, 1911. Captured P. hippocodn and at once 

 placed her in new breeding-cage. . . . 



" March 27th. Feeble in morning . . . dead by noon. Has 

 laid nothing. 



" April 14:th. Since the above was written no less than three 

 gravid P. hippocodn have been placed in the cage and have 

 died without laying. 



" April 27tli. And another since the above. To-day I 

 captured a hippocodn laying on wild orange " (and placed her 

 in the cage, drawing in wild orange branches). ..." In the 

 later afternoon I inserted three more, each as captured." 



These, and others, died without laying. 



I could get none of my dardamis females to feed freely in 

 captivity and all in consequence died very soon ; but in view 

 of the success of other breeders I doubted whether this was 

 the real reason of my own non-success. However, on making 

 my last attempt, in 1913, to breed the species, I tried holding 

 the butterflies by the closed wings, between finger and thumb, 

 over a saucer of sugar-water, at the same time uncurling the 

 proboscis into the liquid by means of the point of a pin. 

 Struggling ceased as a rule when the proboscis entered the 

 liquid and the butterfly fed on the sugar-water as freely as a 

 held Charaxes does on fruit. 



I found feeding in this way a slow process, so, being unable 

 to give the necessary time to it, I substituted for my fingers 

 the simple " holder " of which I append a drawing. A 

 straight-grained twig, a few inches long, was cut off neatly at 

 the ends and pinned or nailed through its middle on to the 

 end of an ordinary cork, this being cut to the required height 

 and stood up on its other end to form a pedestal for the hori- 

 zontally-laid twig. The two ends of the twig were each slit 

 for some distance in, vertically, a thread or string being first 

 wound round tightly between the intended slit and the cork 

 in order to prevent the former from extending too far. The 

 butterfly's wings were pushed, costa foremost, into the slit, 

 preferably for a rather greater distance than I have shown in 

 the drawing ; a small vessel containing sugar-water was placed 

 between the insect and the cork — or else the cork was put to 

 stand in a saucer containing a little of the liquid — and the 



