COMMON BUTTERFLIES OF THE PLAINS OF INDIA. 755» 



ten months or more until the following year produces another 

 crop of tender leaves. The foodplant is 8accoiJetalwn tomentosum^ 

 Hooker, which loses most of its leaves during the hot weather and 

 shoots profusely with the first rains when the butterfly is always 

 most numerous. Dr. K. Jordan says that Polyalthia longifolia,. 

 Benth and Hooker, is eaten by the larva also. These two plants 

 belong to the family Anonacem and the former is spread through- 

 out India in the Plains and in the Hills. The insect is found in 

 Sikhim ; Central and Southern India ; Ceylon. In Bombay the 

 butterfly is found throughout Kanara, Belgaum, in parts of 

 Dharwar, Bijapur and, doubtless, in many other localities in the 

 plains, hills, forests and cultivated lands, and is very plentiful in 

 certain places in the early monsoon months ; it occurs from sea 

 level upwards but nowhere, seemingly, at any great elevation ;. 

 2,000 feet to 3,000 feet seems to be about the limit. It flies 

 fast but somewhat weakljr, much closer to the ground than 

 P, antifhates as a general rule, probably owing to the habit of 

 the pupa. It is moderately fond of flowers, comes readily to damp' 

 patches of sand in the river and nalla-beds and to moist mud on 

 roads in the hot pre-monsoon days in company with other butterflies 

 and has the same ways of resting as P. antiphates. 



P. aristeus, Cram., a very closelj^ allied species nearly exactly 

 similar, inhabits, with its subspecies, Sikkim, Assam, Burma,. 

 Tenasserim, Sumatra, the Mala}^ Peninsula, Borneo, the Philippine 

 Islands, many of the smaller islands of the Malay Archipelago^ 

 Am, New Guinea and Queensland in Australia. P. rhesus,. 

 Boisd., is a very black species that inhabits Celebes. 



93. Papiiio doson, Lin. — This species was formerly known as telephuSf. 

 Felder, also doson of the same author. It is now treated mostly as a 

 subspecies of P. eurypylus, L., by lepidopterists. 



Male and female upperside: black. Forewing : three slender, oblique, 

 short, pale green streaks in basal half of cell and two irregular, small 

 similarly coloured spots near its apex ; a discal band composed of pale green 

 spots that gradually diminish in size anteriorly, the spot in interspace 5 

 the smallest, the two in the interspaces above it slightly larger ; a spot at 

 base of interspace 7 and a siniaous, complete, subterminal series of similarly 

 coloured ones. Hindwing: a transverse band that extends as far as 

 interspace 2 posteriorly and is a continuation of discal band on forewing ;. 

 the upper portion of this band white, the lower pale-green : this is followed 



