80 Dr. G. B. Longstaffs Notes on the Butterflies 



Ldlhot. November 10th. 



Eleven miles south of Delhi lies this glorious city of 

 ruins, and there, under the shadow of the Kutb minar, 

 flying over the stones and amidst the thorny vegetation 

 were many Whites and Orange-tips. The butterflies 

 appeared especially to delight in flying about inside the 

 thorniest bushes, or even flying through and through 

 them, so that torn wings were almost the rule. Prominent 

 in the countless crowd of Belenois mesentina so employed 

 were Ixias marianne and i". pyrene ; a female of the former 

 was distinguished by the substitution of cream-colour for 

 white in the ground-tint of the wings. The delicate-look- 

 ing Teracolus ctrida, lover of ruins, was in abundance, 

 flying close to the ground. 



I saw one black Papilio, one Limnas chrysippus and one 

 Precis lemonias. 



Ndini Tdl, lat. 29° 30' N., alt. 6500 ft. 

 November 16th— 23rd, 1903. 



Unlike Simla and Darjiling, which stand astride lofty 

 ridges, Naini Till lies in a basin by a lake, a situation 

 which, however pleasant it may be in summer, gives it in 

 late autumn a dank feel. In summer it affords good 

 collecting, but in November I found but few insects and 

 those mostly battered and forlorn looking. The fauna, 

 though more Oriental than at Simla, a degree and a half 

 to the north, was much more PalEearctic than at Lahore, 

 which is yet half a degree north of Simla, but of course 

 upon the plain. 



A very clear picture remains with me of a bright 

 sunny afternoon, with a raw chill in the air very sug- 

 gestive of home. On the one hand were rhododendrons and 

 Thujas growing as forest trees, and hard by cactus-like 

 Euphorbias some fifteen feet in height ; on the other, poplars 

 were shedding their golden leaves in bright contrast to the 

 crimson of the wild Ampclopsis (I cannot call it " Virginian" 

 creeper), a "Brimstone"* butterfly dashes wildly past, 

 then a belated " Tortoiseshell"f or "Red Admiral":}: darts 



* Probably Gonepteryx rhamni, var. nipalensis, but possibly a 

 Catopsilia. 

 f Vanessa kashmirensis. X Pyrameis indica. 



