1906] 127 
of food. There are always two great seasons in the damp parts of 
India, one in the month of April, just touching March and May, and 
one, by far the “heaviest,” as the natives say here, in the months of 
September and October, which exactly correspond to the two great 
shooting times of the trees and plants of all kinds; nearly all the 
trees flower twice in those parts, also, as you might suppose, there 
being two sprouting seasons. 
When we were breeding butterflies in Kanara we found that 
males and females came out in equal numbers; which fact surprised 
us much at the time, for certain species, of which one seldom or never 
sees the female, such as Charaxes imna and schreiberi (wardi), Euripus 
consimilis and many of the “blues.” When one does come across 
them it is always in the underwood in the jungles, while the males 
bask openly in the sun on the tops of high trees, on leaves by the 
road-side, &e. In Karwar (North Kanara) we had rare opportunities 
for observing this as the top of a hill close by was 1500 feet above sea 
level where we lived (Karwar is on the sea-beach), and the trees on 
the summit of this hill are all stunted by the strong winds and are 
overtopped in places by huge boulders where we could stand and 
observe, having a view all round of land and sea, hill and plain for 40 
miles on every side. Here, on muggy days in the monsoon, when the 
mists were driving over the top of the hill from the Indian Ocean, 
causing intervals of strong hot sun, light and cool shade, on the 
summit, butterflies used to come in the sunny breaks in the mist and 
settle in hundreds—I had nearly said thousands—on the surrounding 
leaves ; the air at times used to be thick with them chasing each other 
and generally enjoying themselves. All these butterflies, without 
exception, were males; a stray female would come up through the 
underwood now and then, but never to stay. A female Charaaes imna 
or schreiberi or Cynthia salona was an event not to be forgotten, in 
fact I only remember once seeing one of the last. We learnt a lot 
about the habits of butterflies in those days: what species were 
“baskers”” and what were not for example. Cynthia saloma, and five 
species of Charaxes (imna, wardi, schreiberi, fabius and athamas) were 
the most persistent “baskers”’ of the lot: then there were “ blues” of 
the genera Virachola, Camena, Curetis and Tajuria ; Euthalia lubentina 
and garuda would come along later in the day ; skippers of the genera 
Bibasis (sena), Hasora (chiefly chromus), Halpe moorei: Athyma 
tmarina and mahesa and occasionally A. selenophora. None of the 
Papilios or Pierines ever used to bask; the only Pap?lio that ever 
came up to the top for the sun was panope (= dissimilis), and then 
