COMMON BUTTEJRFLIES OF THE PLAINS OF INDIA. 321 



remarkably broad ; and in the female by the ground colour which is pale 

 yellow. Underside : the fusco-ferruginous strigse and spots often sub- 

 obsolete, occasionally entirely absent in the male. Expanse 43-62 mm. 

 ■ Col. Bingham says that the species was described originally from a dry- 

 season male, probably from China. He states that the insect is most variable 

 in size and colour locally and seasonally; and that the characters peculiar 

 to the dry and wet-season forms are most unstable. It is not uncommon 

 to find specimens with the wet-season character of the broad, black 

 border to the hind wing on the upperside and on the underside 

 with the prominent, fusco-ferruginous, transverse strigte and spots 

 usually associated with the dry-season forms. Again in the male, 

 the width of the orange patch of the fore wing is very variable. Broadly 

 speaking, however, he says, the males of I. pyrene can be divided into two 

 groups mentioned here at the end of "Habits." 



E(j(j.—kxv egg was laid at about 1 p.m. on the 14th September 1912, on 

 a partly eaten leaf of Capparh sepiaria at Pachchapur in the Belgaum 

 District of the Bombay Presidency ; it was pearl-white in colour and 

 shiny ; it turned pale cream-colour the second day ; pale pink blotches 

 and spots appeared all over it on the 16th, but these were not very dense. 

 The little larva emerged about 7 o'clock on the morning of the 18th. The 

 egg is more or less bottle-shaped as in the margin has 12 longitudinal 



ridges or ribs from top to bot- 

 tom, of which the 1st and 4th 

 sometimes, or the 1st and 3rd 

 sometimes, anastomose before the 

 top, finishing then, thus joined, 

 in a little free tooth : the teeth 

 forming a narrow ring or crown 

 to the egg ; the intervening rid- 

 ges, when two, run into each 

 other or into one of the ones that 

 reach the top. Always 6, or half the number, seemingly, reach the top 

 as teeth. The ridges are thin, round-edged, and the intervals between, 

 double the breadth of the ridges, are concave and finelj^, transversely 

 striated with some 30 or more parallel, fine, low cross-ridges. The points 

 or teeth are fairly long, the intervals between them rounded. L : 1'5 

 mm. ; B : 0-6 mm. 



Larva — The little larva emerged about 7 a.m. on the 18th of September 

 and finished the egg-shell by about 10 a.m. as its first meal. Then it 

 began to wander about the leaf. The 2nd stage was 2 mm. in length by 

 0'5 mm. in breadth and of a translucent ochreous tint, the spines from 

 the subdorsal, dorsolateral, and supraspiracular, large, conical, slightly 

 opaquely white tubercles nearly as long as the larva is broad ; those on 

 segment 2, indeed, slightly longer and curved forwards ; those on the anal 

 segments somewhat shorter but longer than the majority ; all these with 

 little globules of liquid on their ends ; other hairs there are also in the 

 subspiracular region but not as stout as those from the above main tuber- 

 cles. The head more or less round in shape, of the same colour as the 

 body, with dark eyes and jaws and a slight red apical blotch : surface 

 shiny, smooth except for some long, slightly curved (as long as or very 

 little shorter than the majority of the body hairs) hairs in the usual 

 positions. There is a more or less distinct neck, the long tubercle hairs 

 of segment 2 making a very prominent collar behind it. The colour is, as 

 said above, a translucent ochreous-yellow before feeding on the leaf 

 substance, with a red subdorsal shade on segment 9 and on head-vertex ; 

 all tubercles slightly opaque-white, the hairs all light except those on the 



