THE BUTTERFLIES OF TEE NORTH CANARA DISTRICT. 23 



There is an exception in the first division in the genus Tag lades, 

 which feeds on plants that are scientifically placed amongst the mono- 

 cotyledons, although to the uninitiated they are extremely like dicot- 

 yledons, having reticulated leaves, cordate or digitate in shape ; these 

 plants belong to the Yam and Lily families in the botany books ; the 

 butterflies evidently consider them to be dicotyledons; can it be that the 

 butterfly is right and the scientist wrong ? Division I divides itself into 

 the following groups, containing the butterflies given under each : — 



Division I. 

 Group A. 

 Imago heavy-bodied and of strong flight ; closing the wings over 

 the back when at rest. Larva stout, brightly coloured, cylindrical 

 in shape, thickest in the middle, with a more or less squarish head, 

 sometimes higher than broad, sometimes the reverse, with the lobes 

 little apparent. The larva in its latter stages makes a cell by 

 cutting a leaf from the edge to the midrib, at right angles to the 

 midrib, on one side only, and turning over the piece on to the top of 

 the leaf, fixing the edges down by silken threads all round except 

 at the opening, which is towards the main surface of leaf ; the cell 

 is always made at the point end of the leaf ; when the leaf is small, 

 the whole leaf is double lengthways, its edges being joined to form 

 the cell ; the inside of cell is generally covered with silk. The young 

 larva is very quick in its movements and resembles a moth larva. 

 The pupa is stout, circular in transverse section ; the head, shoulders 

 and fore-part of abdomen about the same breadth ; a slight constric- 

 tion ; thorax somewhat humped, very little higher at apex than 

 abdomen at segment 7 ; the head swollen between the eyes into a more 

 or less accentuated round boss ; pupa attached in the cell by the 

 tail and a body-band. 



178. Ismene gomata, Moore. (Plate VII, Fig. 1.) 

 This insect was never caught or seen in the district until a few 

 years ago when a pupa was found by chance up on the ghats, rolled up 

 in a leaf of Strobilanthes ; the cells of a skipper were found just overhead 

 on a- large creeper with thick, 5-digitate leaves, called Heptapleurum 

 venulosum, a kind of ivy. We have since bred the insect in quantities 

 at all seasons of the year both above and below the ghats ; it is pro- 

 bably to be had throughout the districts ; it has only once been seen 



