176 L. de Niceville — List of the Butterflies of Ceylon, [No. 3> 



sailing flight within a few feet only of the ground, and is consequently 

 easily captured, in this being unlike many of its allied species, which 

 have a lofty flight over dense jungle or mangrove swamps, and are 

 consequently rare in collections. The females are larger and usually 

 paler than the males, but both sexes exhibit great variation in depth of 

 colouring and extent of markings, these characters having been taken by 

 some authors in allied species occurring elsewhere to constitute distinct 

 species, very erroneously in our opinion. The larva still remains to be 

 described. It will probably be found to feed on a creeper with a milky 

 juice, the larva of the allied South Indian species, 5. lynceus, Drury, 

 feeding on Aganosma cymosa, Nat. Order Apocynacese. Mr. E. Ernest 

 Green has sent de Niceville a beautiful coloured drawing of the side 

 view of a larva made by him from a specimen discovered by Mr. F. B. 

 Armstrong, who found it in the district of Deltola feeding upon a 

 climbing asclepidaceous plant allied to Hoy a. It is deep velvety black, 

 with four pairs of long filamentous tentacles from the third, fourth, 

 sixth and twelfth segments, each pair springing from close to the dorsal 

 line ; each segment is marked with a rather broad pale yellow band, 

 and the sixth to the twelfth segments bear laterally a large oval crimson 

 spot ; the head and legs are black. The larva is a very handsome one 

 and is evidently warningly coloured. It probably feeds openly and 

 must be very conspicuous. 



2. Danais (Badena) exprompta, Butler. 



Confined to Ceylon, and there found on the South-West littoral, 

 no species of the subgenus occurring in peninsular or continental India. 

 It is abundant at Galle in June and July and again in November and 

 December ; also in the jungly country between Galle and Colombo, and 

 sparingly in the botanical gardens at Heneratgoda, but not further 

 north than Negombo, where it is common. It used to occur in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of Colombo, but of recent years appears to 

 have disappeared. It is easily distinguished from the next species 

 when on the wing by its much bluer coloration, which colour, however, 

 rapidly fades after the death of the insect. The larva has still to be 

 discovered. 



3. Danais (Tirumala) limniace, Cramer. 



Moore as Umniacae. Common and found almost everywhere in 

 Ceylon ; elsewhere it occurs nearly all over India, in Burma, In do- 

 China, and Southern China and in the islands of Formosa and Hainan. 

 The larva feeds on Asclepias, Calotropis and Hoya (Moore) f and in 

 the Western Himalayas on Marsdenia. 



