324 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XX. 



confined to Peninsular India and Ceylon, and is fairly plentiful 

 everywhere, in these places. 



SUB-FAMILY Libytheinoe. 



Only one genus Libythea. 



GENUS Libythea. 



Only one species, Exp. l - 8" — 2-3" myrrha. 



This sub-family is composed of the single genus containing some score of 

 species spread throughout the world in Europe, Africa, India, the Malay 

 Archipelago, N. and S. America, Mauritius and the Antilles. In India 

 Colonel Bingham records 5 species and 3 races and of these only the one 

 species is of interest to us ; and it is nowhere plentiful. The libytheine 

 butterflies are all very like each other, somewhat like some of the Vanessce 

 in shape and are brown with yellow or white markings on the upperside ; 

 the underside shaded and striate-punctate grey ; they are fond of water 

 and damp places and of the sun, basking generally on the upper end of a 

 dead twig or bit of stick with the wings closed over the back and the fore- 

 wings sunk between the hinder pair so as to show nothing but the protec- 

 tively coloured grey parts. They are then very difficult to see. They fly 

 veil but not for long, going fast in a jerky, skipping way, and dodging from 

 side to side. They are insects of woodlands and the hills. The egg 

 according to Doherty, is shaped like a bottle and is ribbed longitudinally ; 

 in fact, resembles that of the Pieridce ; the larvee may be said to resemble 

 those of the Pieridce also ; those of two species known certainly do so ; the 

 pupa is nymphaline in aspect and character of suspension ; more particu- 

 larly, like that of Apatura, Euripus : rigid, with the body parallel to the 

 surface on which it is fixed. The food-plant of two species, one spreading 

 west to Europe, the other east to China and Malay, is Celtis, a genus, 

 composed of trees belonging to the family Urticacece. 



DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES OF LIBYTHEINE. 



Libythea myrrha, Godart (fig. 5)." — Male and female upperside : ground-colour 

 dark-brown. Forewing : a streak from base along median vein, extending 

 narrowly on each side of it and continued beyond as a large oval spot in 

 interspace 2, two preapical double spots placed obliquely towards costa : 

 orange-yellow. Hindwing : a slight, oblique, narrrow, medial band from 

 vein 1 to vein 5 of the same colour. Underside forewing : ground-colour 

 brown ; orange-yellow markings as on upperside, but broader and more 

 diffuse ; apex and dorsal margin broadly shaded pale grey irrorated with 

 minute dark spots and transverse short strite. Hindwing greyish-brown 

 irrorated with minute dark spots and transverse short strise, shaded in the 

 cell, on the middle of costal margin and on middle of termen with diffuse 

 brown ; the lower half of cell in hindwing darker in the male ; the whole 



