20 ■ LEPIDOPTERA INDICA. 



on the 21tli of December, 1849, and that the perfect insect came out on the 11th 

 of January, 1850. The plant on which it fed was unknown to me by name." 



The only other authentically recorded instance of the rearing of this butterfly is 

 that by Captain T. Macpherson, who published thefollowing very interesting account 

 (Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 1887, p. 164), accompanying it 

 by a rough, though characteristic drawing of the larva, pupa, and egg: "As 

 nothing is known regarding the early history of H. Malaharica, it may interest mem- 

 bers of the Society to learn that I have succeeded in rearing it from the eggs. On 

 the 28th of February last, I was in camp at Devimani on the Kanara Ghauts. On 

 the afternoon of that day, whilst walking through a patch of evergreen forest, I 

 noticed a female Hestia, apparently intent on finding a place to deposit her eggs. I 

 therefore stood still and watched her. She fluttered about for a considerable time 

 round a tree that was thickly covered by a creeper with large cordate leaves. At 

 last she settled on one of these leaves and deposited an egg on the under surface. 

 This I quickly secured, and on a careful examination of a number of other leaves of 

 the same plant, I discovered some eight or ten more freshly deposited eggs. The egg 

 is always deposited singly on the under surface of the leaf ; it is white, oval, about 

 y'ginch long by -^t broad, attached to the leaf by one of the small ends and marked 

 with about twenty-two longitudinal rows of hexagonal indentations. The eggs 

 hatched out in from six to seven days, and about two days before the grub emerged 

 its black head could be distinctly seen through the thin shell. The larva emerges 

 from a little to one side of the apex of the egg, eating only a small hole sufficient for 

 its exit ; it then eats its cast-off shell for its first meal. On emerging the grub is 

 about tg i^^ch long, skin transparent pale yellow, head and feet black, and through 

 the skin are visible the white rings of the more mature grub, also the two black dots 

 on the back of the second segment. It has four minute pairs of fleshy tentacles 

 arranged as in the more mature grub. 



" In a few days the first skin is cast and the grub then assumes the colours and 

 markings which it retains until it changes to pupa. It eats its cast skin in the first 

 two changes only. The young grub has the peculiar habit of eating holes in 

 the centre of the leaf instead of from the margin inwards, as with most caterpillars, 

 but this habit it gives up as it increases in size. lb conceals itself generally on the 

 under surface of the leaf. 



" In from twenty to twenty-five days it attains to full size, and is then about two 

 inches long, cylindrical, slightly tapering towards the extremities, provided with four 

 pairs of black fleshy tentacles about one-quarter inch long, one pair being on the 

 third, fourth, sixth and twelfth segments ; skin smooth, glossy, head black, second 

 segment white with two small dots on the back ; all the other segments white with a 

 broad band of black round the centre of each; legs black. Segments six, seven, 



