1889.] 



A v. Doliei'ty — Notes on Assam Butterflies. 



133 



Tag ia des-group. 



Satarupa nahaba, Moore. Margherita, whei'c S. hhagava also 

 occurs. 



Calliana pieeidoides, Moore. This extraordinary genus and 

 species were described from a single bad specimen without locality, 

 from Grote'a Indian and Burmese collections. I obtained several males 

 near Margherita, but no females. They fly in the darkest parts of the 

 foresL lowards the end of the afternoon,* alighting, like the other 

 butterflies of the Tagiades group, with outspread wings. In the morn- 

 ing they lie concealed, adhering closely to the underside of leaves. 



No one who sees it floating lazily with level wings up and down 

 the bed of a stream, its pure-white upper sui-face singularly conspicuous 

 in the gloom of the jungle, can doubt that the species is protected. 

 I see no i eason to suppose that it mimics any Pierid. In a very vague 

 way it resembles the geometrid genus Euchern, which is likewise pro- 

 tected, and has somewhat similar habits. 



The entii'c body and wings of this butterfly are saturated with a 

 powerful and delicious odour of mingled vanilla and heliotrope. This 

 is often pei'ceptible as it flies past. After pinching the insect, the scent 

 is sometimes obvious for hours afterwards on one's fingers. After lying 

 two weeks in its paper, a dried specimen still gave out perfume. None 

 of the sweet-smelling lepidoptera known to me, not even the Lethes, 

 Ewplmas, or Callidulas have a more powerful odour. Yet it seems to 

 have no specialized scent-organs (such as those genera have), unless 

 the tufts on the hind-tibia?, present in many other hesperians, be so 

 considered. 



I unluckily caught no female, though I once saw a male circling 

 round a dark-coloured hesperian, which escaped. It is perhaps rash 

 to speculate where certainty may before long be attained, but the 

 female is most likely dark. For the male seems protected only by the 

 intensity of its sweet odour (just as the aromatic herbs of Hymettus 

 and Cyllene, as the shepherds there told me, are protected from cattle 

 by the same pleasant fragrance that attracts the bees), and no female 

 known to me has any sweet odour at all. Odours common to both 



* Prof. Wood-Mason tells me that tliis is a common habit among the Sesperiadas. 

 I n Cachar a great many species used to come late every afternoon to visit a certain 

 plant with bine flowers. TLiis seems to me a most interesting fact, illustrating the 

 close relationship between the Hesperiadas and tho Sphinges. I have never observed 

 anything similar myself, though some of the Ismenes, especially the honse-hannt- 

 ing sorts like Parata caiviiuu, ai^., often fly about at gnnrise and sunset, alighting 

 on TOokB and walls. 



