COMMON BUTTERFLIES OF THE PLAINS OF INDIA. 1157 



surface or horizontal, on the upperside or underside of a leaf or 

 against a stone or tree-trunk indiscriminately. The fixture is 

 strong at the tail and the body-band is short. The females of a 

 brood emerge before the males. The butterfly is a fairly strong 

 flier and keeps to open places and the hot sunshine ; it flies low 

 and is fond of resting on the ground with its wings closed over its 

 back and. in dull Aveather, the upper wings drawn down between 

 the lower ones. As may be imagined from the number of eggs 

 laid in a single batch, the perfect insects are very numerous 

 wherever they exist, notwithstanding the fact that the larvas are so 

 subject to j)arasitic attack. It is an insect of the plains and dry 

 regions more particularly, although it exists up to 6,000 feet 

 elevation in the Himalayas and 8,000 feet in the Nilgiris ; it is 

 not uncommon near the sea-coast in Kanara where the rainfall is 

 over 100 inches. Its food-plants are all Capei'S and it has been 

 bred on Gaiyparis apJiylla, C. sepiaria, 0. heyeana, Gadaba indica 

 and Mcerua arenaria, the latter two species also belonging to the 

 CajJparidece . Its distribution is the Himalayas from Kashmir to 

 Sikhim iip to 6,000 feet, and through the plains to Southern 

 India ; one specimen is recorded as having been caiight in Great 

 Nicobar Island, though it has not been recorded from Burma or 

 Assam ; in the west through Persia to Arabia and Africa. There 

 is one form of the insect which by some is considered another 

 species, A. twprobana, Moore, that occurs in Ceylon, in which the 

 male resembles the female of the typical form and the female has 

 the whole apical area of the forewing black 5 in both sexes the 

 underside of hindwing has the ground-colour, a rich chrome- 

 yellow. 



