HIIOPALOCEEA MALAYAN A, 



Tlie larvsB are onisciforin, or shaped like woodlice,' and their 

 habits (as far as our present slight knowledge allows us to form an 

 opinion) are most interesting. Thus one Indian species, Dciidorix 

 (Viracltoia) isocrates, Fabr., has been described by Prof. Westwood t as 

 residing "within the pomegranate in the caterpillar state, several 

 (seven or eight) being found iu one fruit ; in which, after consuming 

 the interior, they assume the chrysalis state, each having first gnawed 



Fia. ft4.— Larva rttiri pupa of Am- t .. * t .,-,1-.- , - 1 * 



UttKx&x Homda, (From Horaf. a hole through the nud of the irmt for the escape of the future 

 . \. . \ ...<. / \ . \ . .3 pu ^ er fj Yj anc j care f u hy attached the footstalk to the branch by a coating 

 of silk to prevent its falling." The late Dr. Thwaites J has given some interesting facts. He 

 states : — u It is difficult to realize that the larva? of some species of these lovely Ltjc&nid<v t such 

 as AmUijiHfdia, &c, are carnivorous or even cannibal in their habits, and do not hesitate to eat 

 their own brethren of the same brood, when any of the latter are commencing their change 

 into the inactive chrysalis state, with their consequent inability to protect themselves from 

 their voracious kindred, who devour them with avidity. Nature, however, finds a protection for 

 these said helpless individuals, in the instinct of a species of ant (Formica smaragdina, Fabr.), 

 which, finding a substance most palatable to it, secreted naturally from a glandular defined 

 spot upon the bodies of these helpless larvae, takes possession of them as 1 cows, J surrounding 

 each separate one and the leaf on which it had been feeding with a few silken strands of 

 its web, protecting them jealously, and attacking most fiercely any living thing intruding 

 upon them. M § 



In the perfect insect the subcostal nervules number only three or four, || and I have myself 

 found these, both with regard to number and position, as excellent characters in the separation 

 and identification of genera. 1T Many more genera undoubtedly existrthan have hitherto been 

 used in the systematic classification of the Jjyca:ntd«', and this could only have been expected 



* The character on which Dr. Horslietd described the Lycanitlcc an belonging to his "vermiform stirps" or family 

 (see his Descr. Cat, Lep. Ins. Moss. E.I.C. pp. 2U, 5H and G4). Those UuhTffl induced Mr. SwoinsoQ, inspired by the views 

 of Macleay, to trace some fanciful analogic* by their resemblance to sometimes " a little tortoise" or to armadillos." llu 

 considered their principal analogy, however, iu the Annnhsa to be found iu the Vermes, and remarked, '* Now Uie only 

 difference between the general form of these tort ■ •i-> -like caterpillars and that of the common earthworm is this — that in the 

 former the body ia excessively contracted* whereas in the latter it is necessarily lengthened : tho pointed extremities of tho 

 bead and of the tail, in both animals, is a common character, which, as wo have already seen, belongs to no other type of 

 larvse of insects or of vertebrate animals i this at once accounts for the excessive length of body possessed by all the gnawing 

 quadruped* {Olires t Linn.), and by all the birds iu the order of waders [UrnUatorva)." — {Hist. &, Mot. Ajrang. Ins. p. 60). 



f Trans. Ent. 8oc. voL ii. pp, 1—8 (1887), and Gen. Diuxn, Lep. p. 469. 



| It is to be earnestly hoped that tho entomological observations of this good observing naturalist have hcen 

 recorded and preserved, so that their future publication may give us a contribution to the real description of the Lepidoptera 

 of Ceylon. 



gJMoore's Lep. CeyL i. p. 70.— Mr. Geo. Dimmock ( 4 Psyche,' vol, iii. p. o»5) states Uiat " tho larva of certain species of 

 Lifc.tr na have been found to attract ants, on account of an opening upon the dorsum of the eleventh segment* wliicii givea out 

 a liquid apparently containing sugar. Upon the twelfth segment, and evidently connected in function with the opening above 

 mentioned, are two protnuule organs covered with line hairs. The fact of ants being attracted to these larvue was first observed, 

 so far as I can Leam t by Esper." 



|| In this rtateniuoL I am only in apparent disagreement with Messrs. Marshall and Dc Niccvillc, who (Butt. Ind,, 

 Uurm. & Ceyl. vol. L p. 18) describe the subcostal uvrvuro as " emitting only two or three branches as those authors with 

 other authorities prefer to consider as tho termination of the subcostal nervure, what I describe— and not alone— as an 

 additional uervule, I cannot, however, agree with my friend Mr. Moore in treating as a fourth or fifth subcostal nervuto what 

 seems clearly the upper discoidal nervule, a course of treatment already repudiated by Hewitson (Ills. Diura. Lepid. p. 2i4 

 (1878), but still continued by Mr. Moore* in his * Lepidoptera of Ceylon/ which necessitates my diagnosis of genera disagreeing 

 with ids own, though I refer to such iu the synonymy- 



f I have not found the difficulty related by Mr. Hewitson t vis. " The branches from the subcostal nervure, which oro 

 such an assistance iu determining the position of genera with regard to each other in other families, here avail little, and differ 

 iu the sexes of the same species" (Introduction to lllustr, Diura. Lepid. — Lyceen.). 



