1895.] L. de Niceville & Dr. L. Martin — Butterflies of Sumatra. 491 



down, the black antennae of G. crocale being sometimes found with the 

 ocellated underside of C. catilla, and vice versa. The restriction of the 

 yellow coloration of the upperside of both wings of the male to the 

 basal area, or its equal diffusion over the whole surface, correlated with 

 the presence or absence of the ocelli on the underside, is also quite 

 an unstable feature by which to distinguish the two species. Dr. Martin 

 writes : — 



" I am quite unable to follow Mr. de Niceville in his amalgamation 

 of G. crocale and G. catilla, and am forced to keep them separate for the 

 following reasons : — 



" G. crocale, the far commoner species, occurs in Sumatra on roads, 

 near houses and gardens, and is never found in the forest. It some- 

 times appears in large numbers, in which case the larvae are very 

 destructive, as in January, 1893, near the Poengei Estate, five kilometers 

 north of Bindjei, they destroyed in a short time a fine plantation of 

 young iron-wood trees, Cassia florida, Vahl., valued at least at $ 3,000, 

 by eating up all the leaves and suffocating the plants. All the grass 

 and every low shrub near this murdered plantation was covered with 

 the pupa?, and after the butterflies had emerged, the whole place looked 

 as if there was a heavy snow-storm in progress, the air being full of 

 large flakes of snow. I took there many hundreds of specimens of both 

 sexes, but amongst them was not a single G. catilla. This seems to 

 me to be an abundantly conclusive fact. The antenna? of C. crocale are 

 black in both sexes, and the males have the underside of both wings simply 

 yellow and white of a washed-out shade. The tuft of hair on the inner 

 margin of the forewing is whitish. There are two forms of the female 

 of G. crocale : — I, the form figured by Distant in Rhopalocera Malayana, 

 pi. xxv, fig. 12, without any yellow colour near the base of both wings 

 on the upperside ; Sumatran specimens are even somewhat darker 

 than Distant's figure, and show on the upperside of the hindwing 

 four or five submarginal black lunules, this form being the rarer one. 

 II, the commoner form is brighter, not so black as the first form, the 

 basal half of the upperside of both wings is nearly as yellow as in the 

 male, the black markings on the costa, apex, at the end of the discoidal 

 cell, and the outer margin of the forewing on the upperside ai*e sharper 

 defined. G. crocale is enormously common, and occurs throughout 

 the year ; the males are fond of flowers, and especially of the Hibiscus 

 rosa-sinensis, Linnaeus, to the deep crimson cups of which they present 

 a beautiful contrast when settled. The larva feeds on the leaves of the 

 above-mentioned Cassia florida, and sometimes in company with Catopsilia 

 pyranthe, Linnaeus, on Cassia alata, Linnaeus, and is of a yellowish-green 

 or yellowish-brown colour, with a lateral blackish-brown streak. The 

 J. ii 62 



