82 Dr. G. B. Longstaff's Notes on the Butterflies 



Late in the afternoon I took a Papilio pammon, a female of 

 Wallace's Form II. polytcs, which was flying about and 

 into bushes, apparently seeking for a resting-place for the 

 night, but possibly seeking where to lay its eggs. 



Close to the village of Khairna I saw upon the cliffs by 

 the roadside several beautiful lizards, grey-spotted, with 

 bright blue legs. 



On the long and hot way up again from Khairna to the 

 ridge on which stand Ranikhet and Chaubattia, a dwarf 

 Precis orithyia and a Neptis astola, Moore, were taken at 

 about 3500 ft., and at about 4000 ft. Belenois mesentina, 

 Pyrameis indica, and Ilerda sena. 



At Ranikhet, 6000 ft. (where, by the way, the cooking at 

 the Dak Rangla w T as the best that we came across in India), 

 monkeys were not uncommon in the woods, but unlike 

 our legumen-loving friends of Khairna, of a revoltingly 

 Ugly type ; butterflies, however, were scarce, and were 

 represented by Pyrameis cardui, Vanessa kashmirensis, 

 Ilerda sena, and Lyctena maha, Koll., var. diluta, Feld. 



At Chaubattia, four miles to the east of Ranikhet, and 

 at a height of about 6200 ft., the officers' quarters com- 

 mand a most glorious panorama of Nanda Devi, 25,749 

 ft., Nanda Kot, 22,491 ft., and Trisul, 23,581 ft., mountains 

 of unsurpassed grandeur of form and held most sacred 

 by pious Hindus as sources of Holy Ganges. These stand 

 between fifty and sixty miles away, yet shine forth as clear 

 and bright as if close to. Here there were rather more 

 butterflies, viz. our old friends Terias hecabe, Precis oinone 

 and P. lemonias, Pyrameis cardui, and Chrysophanus 

 pavana, and in addition something quite fresh, the Erycinid 

 Dodona durga, Koll, of which I got three specimens ; 

 though a small insect it proved tenacious of life. A little 

 beetle, Oides sp., was taken flying over the road. 



On descending again from Naini to the plains one found, 

 as at Simla, that butterflies got more numerous and more 

 Oriental in character. At the top of the road the Hair- 

 streak, Ilerda sena, was common; at 5000 ft. Yphthima 

 philomda, Joh., was met with ; at the Brewery, circa 4500 

 ft., butterflies were very common at a flowery turn of the 

 road, and I took Pyrameis indica, several Precis ipliita, 

 P. lemonias, and a male Hypolimnas bolina, while I missed 

 a brown-and-white Neptis-like butterfly which may have 

 been Rahinda sinuata, Moore. 



