80 Dr. G. B. Longstafi’s Notes on the Butterflies 
Ldlkot. November 10th. 
Eleven miles south of Delhi hes 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 Jxias 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 Yeracolus etrida, lover of ruins, was in abundance, 
flying close to the ground. 
I saw one black Papilio, one Limnas chrysippus and one 
Precis lemonias. 
Ndini Tal, lat. 29° 30’ N., alt. 6500 ft. 
November 16th—23rd, 1903. 
Unlike Simla and Darjiling, which stand astride lofty 
ridges, Naini Tal 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 Palearctic 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 Ampelopsis (I cannot call it “ Virginian” 
creeper), a ‘‘ Brimstone”* butterfly dashes wildly past, 
then a belated “ Tortoiseshell” + or “Red Admiral} darts 
* Probably Gonepteryx rhamnt, var. ivipalensis, but possibly a 
Catopsilia, 
t Vanessa kashmirensis. t Pyrameis indica. 
