PLEBEIN^. 39 



The larva throughout is very rough, widely pitted or depressed, and covered with very 

 minute white tubercles bearing very short fine hairs, neither the hairs nor the tubercles 

 being visible without a lens. The body at its highest and widest part is wider than 

 high. It is extremely variable in markings, hardly any two being exactly alike ; there 

 is usually a dark dorsal, sub-dorsal and lateral line dividing the upper surface of the 

 body into three equal areas, the dorsal and two sub dorsal lines coalescing on the 

 eleventh segment, and forming a broad band to the thirteenth. In some examples 

 the divisions between the segments are marked with darker, and there is a sub-dorsal 

 series of oblique lines, one on each segment, between the dorsal and sub-dorsal lines. 

 The underside of the body and legs seem to be always pale green. The erectile organs 

 on the twelth segment very small. Feeds in Calcutta on Cycas revoluta. In Calcutta 

 three species of ants attend this larva, which Professor Forel has identified for 

 me : Prenolepis longicornis, Latreille, Monomorium speculare, Mayr, and Cremasto- 

 gaster, n. sp. 



Pupa. — Violet-brown, thick, head truncate (Moore) ; of the usual Lycsenid form, 

 quite smooth, more or less fuscous, with a darker dorsal and sub-dorsal line, head-case 

 somewhat square, thorax slightly humped and constricted posteriorly, spiracles pale. 

 Though the larvae swarm in April and May in Calcutta on the cultivated Cycads in 

 gardens, eating the hardly-opened shoots or fronds, thereby utterly destroying the 

 appearance of the plant for the year, I have never succeeded in finding the pupa on 

 the plants, and can only conclude that the ants drive the full-grown larvae down the 

 stems of the plants into their nests, where the larvse undergo their transformations 

 (de Niceville). 



Habitat. — India, Ceylon, Burma and the Malay sub-region. 



Distribution. — Moore records it from Ceylon, Elwes from Bernardmyo, Betham 

 from the Central Provinces, Watson from the Chin Hills and Chin Lushai, Mackinnon 

 and de Niceville from Mussuri, de Rhe-Philipe from Lucknow, de Niceville from the 

 Himalayas, Orissa, Kanara, Bangalore, Pulni Hills, Andamans, Nicobars ; the type came 

 from Java. 



Note. — The Ceylon examples are always of a paler and more brilliant blue colour 

 than those from India. 



Genus EUCHRYSOPS. 



Euchrysops, Butler, Soc. Ent. xxxiii. p. 1 (1900). 



Catochrysops, Moore (part), Lep. Ceylon, i. p. 90 (1881). Distant, Rhop. Malayans, p. 223 (1884). 



de Niceville, Butt, of India, iii. p. 175 (1890). Bingham, Fauna of Brit. India, Butt. ii. p. 410 



(1907). 



Eyes naked. Foreiving, cell half the length of the wing, vein 7 from a little 

 before upper end of cell, 8 absent, 9 from middle of 7, 10 from apical third of sub-costal 



