430 



PAPILIONID^. 



An exceedingly variable species. Some specimens are absolutely devoid of 

 markings on the upper surface in both sexes, and from such examples to 

 others in Avhich all the Avings are heavily boi>dered with black there are 

 all intermediate gradations. The male ranges in colour from a very pale 

 citron to orange, and some females are much suffused with blackish 

 scales. Some specimens are almost immaculate on the under surface, Avhilst 

 others are heavily marked Avith dark brown. The males range from o0-59 

 millim., and the females from 38-59 millim. in expanse. Probably no 

 other butterfly has received so many names as T. hecahe ; but confining my 

 remarks to such forms as have been named and described from the region 

 dealt with here, I may say that an examination of an extensive series such as 

 the one before me, selected from an enormous number received by me from 

 China and Japan, which includes all the forms enumerated above, together 

 with intermediate forms, should prove, even if the fact had not been ascer- 

 tained by breeding-experiments, that all the specimens are referable to one 

 species. 



Pryer states that the mandarina form is on the wing in the autumn, and 

 again, after hibernation, in the spring, when the females deposit their eggs 

 upon Lcspedeza juncea, and it is from these eggs that hecahe, the summer form, 

 is produced. The same writer says : — " By placing half of a brood of larvai 

 in a cool place and half in a warm one, I have simultaneously produced a 

 mixture of the two forms, some perfect hecahe (hot), and some mandarina 

 (cold), at a time of year when naturally only hecahe is found. . . . mandarina 

 appears on the cold mountains much earlier than on the plains, and these 

 fly down and mix with hecahe, producing one or more broods late in the 

 autumn, of numberless intermediate varieties, showing all transitions between 

 tlic two parent forms." With reference to the apparent disproportion of the 

 sexes of the hecahe form, Pryer writes : — " The males are fond of settling in 

 numbers on damp spots in pathways, or flying about in tlie open, and are 

 easily captured in large numbers. The females have to be souglit after among 

 tlie lierbage and undergrowth, and are much less easily found." 



The larva and pupa of T. hecahe, from Java, are figured by Horsfield (Cat. 

 Lcp. E. I. C. ])1. i, figs. 11, U a), avIio states that the larvae are found 

 abundantly from .laiiuiiry to Ai)ril feeding on ^schynomene scshan. Distant, 

 (pioting from ])r. 'J'liwaites and Mr. Mackwood, gives Leguminosw and tlie 

 " Madras thorn" as food-])lanf s. 



