921 



THE COMMON BUTTERFLIES OF THE PLAINS 

 OF INDIA. 



By 



L. C. H. Young, b.a., f.b.s., f.z.s. 

 PART III. 



( With Plate C.) 

 (Continued from page 423 of this Volvme.) 



We now come to a different section of the family — the Apaturine — 

 by far the most difficult from the systematic point of view that we 

 shall have to deal with in this series and one of the most difficult 

 in the whole of the Lepidoptera. 



In the tabulation of genera given above I have differentiated 

 4 genera — Charaxes, Oupha, Gyrestis and Apatura. But there 

 is really only one strongly marked division — that which separates 

 Cliaraxes from the remainder. In subdividing the latter it is necessary 

 to rely upon characters of secondary importance. In the great genus 

 Apatura in which, as constituted here, there are at least seventy-five 

 Indian species and possibly many more, there is of course considerable 

 structural variation. Unfortunately, the species follow each other in 

 such close sequence, and the variation has occurred in such similar 

 directions along each parallel line of development that it is impossible 

 to subdivide by characters that correspond to the obvious superficial 

 relationships. 



Genus Cupha. 



This genus contains about a dozen Indian species, all of which 

 are some shade of dull orange-yellow, with darker and lighter 

 markings and having a more or less oblique, ill-defined, mac alar, 

 pinkish-mauve band crossing both wings on the underside. 



Only one species is at all generally distributed in Peninsular India, 

 viz., C. plialantlia — a species which, as already mentioned, bears 

 a remarkable superficial resemblance to a Fritillary. 



Cuplia phalantha, Drury. Male and female- Orange-yellow, 

 with the following brown-black markings on the forewing. The 

 outline of a square spot in the middle and an irregularly shaped one at 

 the end of the cell (the centres being hardly darker than the ground 

 colour), 3 spots beyond and 3 spots below the cell between the veins, 



