COMMON BUTTERFLIES OF THE PLAINS. 531 



Colour of body when full grown is a bluish, dark green dorsally, with a 

 whitish yellow-green, often somewhat indistinct, spiracular line ; belly 

 yellow-green ; when not quite fully grown the colour is greenish yellow all 

 over. L : 26mm. ; B : up to 3mm. nearly ; the length may also be slightly 

 greater. 



Pupa.— In shape indistinguishable from that of hecahe except by the 

 colour which is here dark yellowish green-brown with the top of beak yellow; 

 the beak is sharply pointed and often slightly turned up at end. Some of 

 the pupiB are much greener than others. They are nearly invariably 

 found strung up in companies one behind the other along the under-side 

 of a twig or midrib of a leaf ; they are of the same size as those of hecabe. 



Habits. — The eggs are laid on the top of a leaf or on a yonng 

 shoot to the number of 20 or 30, in clusters. The larvae are 

 gregarious right through their existence ; they are much subject to 

 attack by hymenopterous parasites. When about to pupate they do 

 not wander far and, as indicated already above, they hang themselves 

 up in rows, one behind the other, along the midersides of twigs and 

 leafribs, in which position the pupae are generally found ; the sus- 

 pension being the same as for hecahe. The butterflies are perhaps 

 the most active of all the Terias genus and may often be seen flying 

 high up in the air round trees — perhaps because their commonest 

 foodplant is one of the largest creepers in India which often grows 

 over the highest trees. This plant is Wagatea spicate, a climber 

 with a stem covered with sharp-pointed, thick-based, strong thorns, 

 shiny, small, hard-looking leaflets and long spikes of orange and 

 red flowers which form striking objects in the jungle-landscape of 

 the Bombay Western Ghats. It is belonging to the Leguminosece . 

 The larvae have also been found on some species of Cassia and upon 

 Foinciana regia, the Gold-Mohur Tree. The butterfly exists in 

 Sikhim, Central and Southern India; Assam; Burma; Tenasserim ; 

 the Andamans ; extending into the Malayan Subregion. 



The genus Terias is Ethiopian and Indo-Malaj^an ; there are 9 

 species recognized as occurring in British India : those described 

 above, T. moorei from the Nicobars; T. andersoni from the South 

 Andamans and Tenasserim and T. sari from South India in the 

 Nilgiri Hills, Ceylon, Burma, Tenasserim, extending far into the 

 Malayan Subregion, both distinguished from all others by the male 

 having, like hecahe, a sex-mark only on the fore wing but, unlike 

 any other species, by both sexes having only a single reddish-brown 

 mark in the cell of fore wing on the underside ; and T. harina from 

 Sikhim, Assam, Burma, Tenasserim, Andamans, extending into the 

 Malayan Subregion, a species without any male secondary sexual 

 characters, with the underside quite unmarked and the upperside of 

 hind wing without any terminal black edging : it is a very clear, 

 pure, pale primrose-yellow in colour. 



(To he continued.^ 

 14 



