THE COMMON B UTTERFLIES OF THE PLAINS OF INDIA. 78!) 



a-. Body plain grass-green ceramas. 



h-. Body yellowish-green with dark, dorsal line and 



less dark lateral shade . . . . . . . . mcevius. 



Both larvae feed on grasses. The pupae are like those of Telicota, but much 

 smaller. 



e\ Head round, or very nearly so ; body-colour jolain 

 green with a dark, dorsal line and an extremely 

 indistinct, subspiracular, whitish line . . . . Genus Bamcus. 



One species hampsoni. 



Larva feeding on grasses ; pupa rather slight, like that of Telicota, but with 

 the hinder end of cremaster ending at each corner in a little point. 

 /'. Head quite round, skin thin, translucent ; jjlain 

 green or greenish-yellow or banded longitudinally 

 white, rose-colour, yellow and green . . . . Genus Halpe. 



or. Body with green, dorsal line flanked by a yellow, 

 subdorsal band followed by a broader,rose-colour, 

 lateral band, below this again a subspiracular, 

 white, narrower band ; head plain light yellow- 

 brown . . . . . . . . . . . . honorei. 



b'. Body translucent, soiled dark-greenish-yellow ; 

 head soiled-yellow, the margin brown and a 

 browai dorsal line down middle . . . . . . hyrtacus. 



C". Body translucent soiled dark-green ; head light 

 yellov.'- brown, a dorsal, dark band down middle 

 of face with a crescent-shaped-brown mark in 

 middle of each lobe, sometimes joined at its 

 bottom to dorsal band . . . . . . moorei. 



It is quite probable that very useful characters for classification 

 of larvae might be obtained from a study of the grouping of the eyes 

 in the eye-curve ; whether two are confluent, whether some are larger 

 than others, whether they are grouped in pairs or otherwise, &c. Also 

 the length and shape of the true clypeus and false clypeus might give 

 differentiating characters ; the conformation of the labrum and of 

 the ligula and so on. The shape of the head certainly is useful, the 

 clothing and texture of the surface also. But all this would require 

 a very detailed study indeed. 



Then there is the larval cell : the method of making it and the 

 shape when made. Some groups of skippers make very slovenly 

 larval houses, others make them extremely solid and tightly closed. 

 The egg-larvee of some skippers start with a cell of a different form to 

 that which they manufacture later on ; others adhere to the one form 

 ail through, making new ones to accommodate their increasing bodies 

 as required. There are also caterpillers that make many cells, seem- 

 ingly just for fun, as do some Babblers amongst the birds ; some 

 wander away before pupation and change on any plant but none 

 pupate anywhere but in or under leaves with the single exception 

 as far as is known, of the genus Ampittia, which ties itself naked to a 

 rice-stem. 



We might classify : — 



Egg-larva making a round cell on the top of the leaf, somewhere in the middle 

 by eating away the substance in a circle, leaving just a hinge, turnmg over the 



