Observed in a tour through India and Ceylon. 11? 



The congregation of butterflies at damp sand was 

 observed by Bates on the banks of the Amazon in 1849. 

 He noted that they were all males, mostly of the genus 

 Callidryas.* Indeed Sir J. D. Hooker had the year before 

 noted butterflies sitting on damp sand " in thousands " in 

 the Ranjit valley, Sikkim.-{* 



Mr. E. Andre noted a similar thing in Venezuela in 

 1897, where the attraction was the foul mud of a farm- 

 yard: the butterflies were chiefly Callidryas, with some 

 Heliconms, Papilio, Metamorpha and Cterois. He says : 

 " Each species tried to herd with its own kind," but he says 

 nothing as to sexes. There is a capital photograph in his 

 book of a group of Callidryas.^ 



Doubtless this habit of butterflies is well known to all 

 tropical collectors. I myself in Germany some 35 years 

 ago, noted swarms of Blues at small puddles in the road — 

 several species together, including, so far as I could see, L. 

 alsus, L. arion, and L. btetica. A few days afterwards near 

 the same place and similarly occupied I caught Apatura 

 iris in my hat ! This summer at Mortehoe, on the 1st of 

 August, in the early afternoon, I saw 14 or 15 G. napi 

 sitting close together on wet mud ; they were all males. 



A piece of waste ground adjoining the plantation of the 

 singularly graceful Areca palms, covered with Lantana in 

 full bloom, was crowded with butterflies such as Crastia core 

 and Narmada coreoides, Moore, one or both of which (for I 

 did not distinguish them when alive) was abundant; 

 several Neptis varmona, and two or three Nepheronia 

 ceylonica, Feld., another southern species. More striking 

 than all these were the swarms of Tirumala limniace, a 

 big and handsome black and bluish-white Danaid, which I 

 found all over India but never saw elsewhere in anything 

 like such numbers as on that mass of Lantana. 



Other things that turned up in the course of the two 

 days' collecting were Tachyris hippo, two ; Teracohis etrida, 

 one ; Hypolimnas bolina, two males ; H. misippus, one male ; 

 Precis iphita, common ; Caprona ransonnettii, Feld., one ; 

 Parnara mathias, one ; Castalius rosimon, and plenty of 

 Lampidcs celeno, Cr., including the form conferanda, Butl. 



Of the above the fine Skipper, Caprona, was seen to 

 settle, in full sunshine, on the under-side of a leaf, with its 



* " Naturalist on the Amazons," 1st edn., p. 249. 



| " Himalayan Journals." 



j "Naturalist in the Guianas," p. 142. 



