772 MR. A. G. BUTLER ON THE GENUS PROTOGONIUS. [Dec. 2, 



When approached, they sometimes rise up three or four feet and 

 hover in the air, chirping sharply, with breast towards the intruder. 



But the Cachilas are the tamest of feathered creatures, and usually 

 creep reluctantly away on their little pink feet when approached. 

 If the pedestrian is a stranger to their habits, they easily delude him 

 into attempting their capture with his hat, so little is their fear of 

 of man. 



To sing, the Cachila mounts upwards almost vertically, making at 

 intervals a fluttering pause accompanied with a few hurried peculiar 

 notes. When he has thus risen to a great height, but never beyond 

 the sight as Azara says, he begins the descent slowly, the wings 

 spread and inclining upwards ; descending, he pours out a continuous 

 impressive strain, ending with a falling inflection or with two or three 

 throat-notes as the bird pauses, fluttering, in mid air, and then re- 

 newed successively, till, when the songster is within a few feet of the 

 earth, he reascends as before to continue the performance. They 

 sometimes sing on the ground ; but their strains are then weak and 

 desultory. 



The Cachila raises two broods a year. The first brood is hatched 

 about the middle of August — that is, from one to three months before 

 other Passerine species begin laying. By anticipating the breeding- 

 season, their early nests are exempted from the evil of parasitic 

 eggs ; but, on the other hand, frosty nights and cold storms are 

 probably as fatal to their broods as the instinct of the Molothrus. 



Their second brood is reared in December ; and in that season 

 a vast number of their nests contain parasitic eggs. The nest, 

 placed within a slight depression in the earth under the grass, is 

 sometimes dry and well lined with hair or fine roots, and sometimes 

 composed of scanty materials loosely put together. During the 

 solstitial season I have frequently found nests with frail roofs or shades 

 built over them, the short and withered grass affording a poor pro- 

 tection from the meridian sun. 



The eggs are four, oval, dirty white, spotted with dusky brown, 

 often thickly mottled or entirely stained with the last colour. 



The manners of this species, wherever I have observed it, are the 

 same ; it lives on the ground on open plains where the herbage and 

 grass is short, and never perches on trees. The song varies in 

 intonation in different regions. 



3. Revision of the Genus Protogonius. 

 By Arthur G. Butler, F.L.S., F.Z.S., &c. 



[Received October 24, 1873.] 



(Plate LXIX.) 



The small Nymphalidian genus Protogonius has been long sup- 

 posed to consist of only one extremely variable species, the varieties 

 of which, however, are admirable copies of several species of Helico- 

 jioid Danainsc ; but since there is not the slightest ground for arri- 



