﻿NYMPHALINyE. 223 



Thwaites, writing of the butterflies of this sub-family as observed in Ceylon, says, 

 " The strength and firm texture of the wings enable them to keep up au unceasing 

 activity during the bright hours of the day. They seem to delight in displaying 

 their exquisite beauty to the sun. Their flight, though so powerful, is not observed 

 to sustain these charming insects in one uniform direction, like the Euplceas, but 

 serves rather to enable them, when rambling in their frolic, to make wide sweeps 

 within no very extensive area. Some species, such as the Junonias, prefer to display 

 their bright expanded wings upon the sunny ground, whilst others, as Neptis, fly 

 gaily about the low flowering shrubs. Many kinds, like Diadema [Hypolimnas], &c., 

 when at play, return again and again at certain intervals of time to the same, or to 

 nearly contiguous spots, and thus give the collector renewed opportunities of 

 capture" (Lep. Ceylon, 1, 26). 



" All the Charaxes in the Malayan region are hard to catch, but there is nothing 

 more helpless than most Charaxes in the Indo-Malayan region. They fly so straight 

 that you can take them on the wing nine times out of ten ; they persistently return 

 to the same spot, and love to alight on projecting twigs, where you can easily get 

 them by a stroke of the net from below. But this is not the case in the Malayan 

 regions; I do not know how many hours I spent in the interior of Sumba, trying to 

 catch a huge undescribed Charaxes of the pyrrhus group ; and the polyzena group 

 never seem common down there as in India" (Doherty, P.Z.S. 1891, p. 256). 



Distribution. — The Nymphalinse are found throughout the world. One species, 

 Vanessa cardui, may well be called cosmopolitan, " whose range," writes Mr. 

 Scudder (I.e. 469), " with the exception of the Arctic regions and South America, 

 extends over the entire extent of every continent, Australia and New Zealand 

 producing a race peculiar to themselves, while the other large islands south of Asia 

 possess the normal type, which is also found upon the small islands lying off the 

 western borders of the Old World, the Azores, Canaries, Madeira, and St. Helena, 

 occurring also in Bermuda, Cuba, and has been taken at various points in the 

 Hawaiian Archipelago." The greatest development of the sub-family is " in tropical 

 and sub-tropical regions " (de Niceville I.e. 3). Some Himalayan species occur at 

 very high altitudes ; Vanessa indica was observed by the late Major J. L. Sherwill in 

 the Eastern Himalayas, " as being common at great elevations, and also on the 

 snow and on the glaciers at 13,000 to 16,000 feet elevation." Vanessa Ladalcensis was 

 taken by Dr. Stoliczka at 15,000 feet in the Western Himalayas. Captain Lang took 

 Grapta G-album on the Hungrung Pass, at about 15,000 feet altitude, and Limenitis 

 Ligi/es at 10,0C0 feet. Dr. Stoliczka observed an Argynnis on the top of the Lanak 

 Pass, at an elevation of 18,672 feet. Dr. Duthie obtained Argynnis clara at 12,000 

 to 14,000 feet in the North-Western Himalayas, and Major H. B. Hellard took 

 specimens of the same Argynnis on the north side of the Rupin Pass from about 



