NYMPHALINJi:. (Gmar> .higynnina.) 235 



throiigboiit the Slian States, Burma. Found commonly on tlie Phwayla Plateau, 

 and less commonly at Fort Stedman " (Tr. Ent. Soc. 1890, 523). Capt. B. Y. 

 Watson took it in the " Chin Hills, in May and June, occurring rarely at 3500 feet 

 and upward" (J. Bombay N. II. S. 181)7, 655). It occurs also in W. and 

 S. China, Hong Kong, Formosa, and Japan. Mr. J. J. Walker, R.N., records 

 it as " tolerably common in Hong Kong, frequenting the tops of the liills, and also 

 met with in gardens. The female bears a striking resemblance to (J<-(Iu>fiia Bibli^, 

 as well as to Da)iaii< Chrysippus, when on the wing" (Tr. Ent. Soc. 1895, 455). 



LiFE-HisTOEY AND Habits. — "During the cold weather of 1892-3 I was very 

 much surprised to see a female of A. Niylie in my garden at Bankipur, Behar. I 

 had never seen this butterfly here before, though I had often caught it at Masuri. 

 Mr. de Niceville tells us that the food-plant of the larva is usually the wild violet. 

 So far as I could find out, this does not grow in Bankipur, and 1, therefore, tried 

 shutting up a female in a cage with a pot of garden Violets, but she did not lay. 

 Very soon after this, I picked up a caterpillar which I found crawling on the ground, 

 in a bed of Pansies. Further search led to the discovery of others on the Pansies. 

 The caterpillar is black, with a broad orange band down the back, and has thorn- 

 like black spines projecting laterally. It keeps itself carefully concealed under the 

 leaves, but it feels the cold during the night, and when the sun gets warm in the 

 morning, it leaves the plant and takes a little promenade on the gi'ound, and 

 frequently lies basking in the sunshine. When it has got comfortably warmed up, 

 it returns to the food-plant with renewed vigour and a keen appetite. This made 

 it easy to find them, and saved one the trouble of hunting under the leaves. Those 

 in the cage behaved in the same way, and always left the plant in the forenoon to 

 lie on the ground and bask in the warm sunshine. The butterflies seem to have 

 preferred the Pansies {Viola tricolor) to tlie Violets (F. odorafa) because the 

 Violets were in pots, whereas the Pansies were in the ground. I found that a 

 female which refused to lay when caged on a pot of Pausies laid freely when caged 

 over Pansies planted out. She walked about over the plant depositing an egg here 

 and there, sometimes on the leaf, sometimes under it. The eggs are cone-shaped, 

 slightly flattened on the top, and when first laid are pure "white, gradually becoming 

 a bluish-green tint. I have also observed a female laying eggs in freedom. She 

 kept partially opening and shutting her wings while she walked along the ground. 

 Then she would get well into a plant, curl her body round the edge of a leaf, and 

 deposit an egg on the under-surface. Then she walked on the ground to another 

 plant, opening and shutting her wings the while; she always laid under a leaf, 

 except when she laid on a half-opened one, and then deposited the egg well down 

 and on the upperside. She laid only one egg on each leaf at one time. On one 

 occasion she went back and laid a second egg on a leaf at some distance from the 



