COMMON BUTTERFLIES OF THE PLAINS OF INDIA. 1153 



Ghats in Bombay and generally keeps to the very tops of trees, and the 

 trees are very large and tall. On the hill tops, however, where there aret 

 huge boulders and rocks, often with the food-plant growing over them, 

 P. sita may be found, in certain localities, within the radius of a long* 

 handled net ; but it is never an easy insect to catch. It is very quick at 

 dodging and never flies slowly although it constantly, in such places, 

 returns again and again over the same route. It appears about 8 o'clock 

 in the morning and likes the sunshine; after 2 p.m. it disappears. It 

 comes to damp places on roads and in nalla-beds in the hot days preced- 

 ing the monsoon with P. antiphates, P. dofion and others, and may then be 

 most easily caught by dropping a net over the whole crowd ; but the spots 

 and times where the exact conditions that attract it exist, are not often 

 met with and so it comes about that it is one of the most difficult insects 

 to get. It will come to a decoy under the last conditions so that one may 

 capture a certain number if fortunate in time and place. All thus captured 

 are, however, males ; the females neither fly round the hill-tops nor come 

 to drink on the ground. They may occasionally be seen round the food- 

 plants but even that is rare. The larva feeds upon Capers ; it certainly 

 will be found on Capparis horrida L. for the Kanara chrysalis above 

 alluded to was found on a leaf of that climber. The distribution is 

 Southern India and Ceylon. There are two other Indian species, P. 

 thestylis, Dblday, with a wide distribution from Mussoorie to Sikhim in the 

 Himalayas ; Assam ; Burma ; Tenasserim and Siam ; and P. clemantha from 

 Sikhim, Butan, Assam, Burma, Tenasserim and Siam. All three are 

 remarkably like species of Delias. 



91. Anaphaeis mesentina. Wet-season form. Male wpperside : white. 

 Forewing : costa to base of vein 11 dusky black, thence continued in a 

 jet-black, gradually widened, curved, short streak along the discocellulars 

 to the lower apex of cell : apical area diagonally with the termen black, 

 the former with six elongate, outwardly pointed spots of the ground colour 

 enclosed one in each of the interspaces 3, 4, 6, 6, 8 and 9. Hindwing : 

 uniform, the black along the venation on the underside seen through by 

 transparency ; termen between veins 2 and 6 somewhat broadly black, 

 with a series of four round spots of the ground-colour in the interspaces ; 

 below vein 2 and above vein 6 the termen is very narrowly black. Under- 

 side : forewing white, marking similar, more clearly defined, the white 

 spots within the black apical area larger. Hind wing ; yellowish-white, 

 all the veins very broadly bordered with black ; interspaces 1, 2, 6 and 7 

 with cross bars of black, beyond which there is a subterminal, somewhat- 

 broad, transverse band of black, between veins 2 and 6. Cilia of both fore 

 and hindwings white alternated with black. The ground-colour on both- 

 upper and undersides variable, often cream-coloured above ; beneath : in 

 some specimens, the base of cell and the elongate spots in apical area of fore- 



