.MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 333 



but the birds died before they could be let loose. Cutch is very suitable for 

 several species of N. African Antelopes — G. sommeringii, Oryx heisa and 

 G. walleri, and lam sure His Highness would be very pleased to receive any of 

 the above and have them turned loose in some of his preserves. The two 

 oryx — male and female— which I gave him in 1891 unfortunately died through 

 over-feeding on the part of their keeper, who gave them oil-cake and goor of 

 all things, and allowed them little or no exercise. They were eight months 

 old when I brought them from Aden, and I had brought them up from calves 

 of one month and two days respectively. They were very tame, but the bull 

 was beginning to have the use of his horns. 



Any that might be sent here for acclimatisation trial would be let loose at 

 once in the preserves after the former experience. 



C. D. LESTEil, Lieut., \lth Bo. Infxj. 

 Bhuj, January^ 1896. 



No. VII.— NOTE ON VIRAGHOLA PERSE, HEWITSON, 

 A LYO^NID BUTTERFLY. 



Having lately reared several larv^ of ViracJiola perse, Hewitson, for the 

 purpose of investigating the action of the ants attendant upon them, I now 

 give an account of my observations, which, although very incomplete, may 

 serve as a stepping-stone to further researches, if not as an explanation of 

 the several rather conflicting accounts upon the subject.* In the first batch 

 of larvEe I obtained on the Fagoo Tea Estate, British Bhutan, at 2,500 feet 

 elevation, in June, 1895, the larva3 were about half-grown, and feeding on the 

 interior of the fruit of wild pomegranates. In every case one larva occupied 

 a fruit to itself, with one exception only, in which the fruit was inhabited by 

 a half -grown larva, and was bored near the apex by a very small larva. The 

 small larva, however, soon left the larger in full possession, and sought a fruit 

 for itself. Some of these half -grown larvse were attended by a black ant of 

 slow movements with extremely flattened head and abdomen. As the hole 

 made by the larva in the fruit was the same size as its anal scutate segment 

 and that segment only was exposed, only two ants at most were found attend- 

 ant upon the larva. The excrement of the larva, which would otherwise 

 have filled up the hole, was presumably removed by the ants in order to allow 

 themselves entrance. Although I never happened to observe this operation, 

 still it is probable that it was so, as I occasionally found the hole filled with 

 excrement, the attendant ants being on the outside of the fruit, and soon after 

 found the passage cleared and the ants busied on the exposed segment of the 

 larva. Of course, it is quite possible that the larva itself removed the stoppage 

 by backing, as it must have done where no attendant ants were found. In the 

 earlier stages the larv« seem in a particularly unsettled state, residing hi the 

 interior of one fruit for a few days only, and then beginning on another. 



*Vide de Niceville's and Aitken's notes in "The Butterflies of ladia, Bunnah and 

 CeyloD," vol. iii, pp. 481, 482 (1890). 



