192 LEPIDOPTERA INDICA. 



the body with six rows of well-branched-spines ; colour pale yellow ; lightly marbled 

 with dark brown ; head black, with an inverted V of yellow ; under parts black." 



Pupa. — " Very grotesque ; two extraordinary expansions, like bats' wings, 

 springing from the basal abdominal segment, a smaller pair on the penultimate 

 segment, and a large, angular, dorsal prominence above the head ; colour light or 

 dark brown, with two rows of subdorsal silver spots on thorax and three pairs of 

 green spots on the abdomnial segments " (Davidson and Aitken. I.e.). 



Habitat. — South India. 



DiSTRiBUTiOxN. — " Pretty commou, in the North Kanara District of Bombay, 

 everywhere in forest, from August to September onwards. Males congregate on the 

 peaks of hills to bask in the sun. Monsoon specimens are conspicuously darker 

 than those found in the dry season. The female is often difficult to tell from 

 Parentlws cirens, on the wing, its flight being similar, though less powerful" 

 (Davidson and Aitken, I.e. 1896, 248). "Mr. R. Morgan has taken both sexes in 

 the Wynaad, as also has Mr. H. S. Ferguson in Travancore. Mr. F. W. Bourdillon 

 says of this species, " Occurs in Trevandrum at about 2000 feet elevation, is un- 

 common and difBcult to secure owing to its strong flight and habit of settling twenty 

 or thirty feet from the ground " (de Niceville, I.e. 43). " Both sexes common on 

 the "Western slopes of the Nilgiris, rare throughout the rest of the District " 

 (Hampson, Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1888, 352). Capt. E. Y. Watson records a single 

 male taken at Gersoppa Falls, Mysore, in January" (Journ. Bombay N. H. S. 

 1890, 4). 



Food-Plant and Habits of Lakva. — Messrs. Davidson and Aitken " found the 

 larva feeding on the wild Passion-flower {Modecca pahnata) about the end of 

 September. It must have be.n plentiful earlier, as the butterfly came out about the 

 beginning of July, and was common enough all through the rains. It is a night- 

 feeder, returning to some distance, often to another plant, during the day " {I.e. 

 1890, 270). 



CYNTHIA ASELA (Plate 358, fig. 1, larva and pupa, fig. 1, a, b, c? ? ). 



Cj/ni/ji'a ^eeZfl, Mcore, Proc. Zool. Soc. 1872, p. 558; Lep. of Ceylon, i. p. 53, pi. 26, fig. 1, la, 

 (J ? , lb, c, larva and pupa (1881). de Niceville, Butt, of India, ii. p. 43 (1886). 



Imago. — Male. Upperside bi'ight olivescent ochreous-yellow, darkest on the 

 basal areas. Forewing with black cell and discocellular streaks, a streak below the 

 cell, a transverse inner-discal interrupted sinuous line, an outer-discal row of more 

 or less obsolete dentate spots, the upper one being pale-centred, two marginal 

 sinuous lines, and a medial-discal indistinct darker ochreous sinuous line. Hind- 

 wing with a black inner-discal transverse straight line, a medial-discal darker 



