AMATHUSIA. By H. Frith storfer. 
427 
artificially planted in his garden and suffered from the ravages of the Amathusia caterpillars, just as they 
are also often destructive to the coco-palms, and transform the splendid green fans into broom-like rags. 
In this work they have a powerful competitor in the larva of a large Hesperid ( Hidari irava Moore ) which 
also feeds in great numbers on the coco-palm, and usually comes off victorious in the struggle for existence 
with the Amathusia larva, for it lives concealed at the base of the leaf, two of which are spun together, and fre¬ 
quently gnaws through the midrib, thus actually cutting off the Amathusia larvae. The young larvae are white- 
green with longish, white pubescence and a fine black dorsal marking, consisting of two rings; they live in com¬ 
munities; they only feed at night, and by day they retreat into the axil of the leaves, where they rest, pressed 
close together, side by side, and can only be discovered by close examination of a practised eye. Not until 
after the last change of skin do the larvae separate and live more solitarily; they are now grey-green with longer, 
red-grey hairs, have two setose horns on the reddish head and two fine anal points. The light green pupa hangs 
downwards from the horizontal branches of the palm. The imago emerges in about 12 days, is extremely 
fond of shade, rests by day with folded wings in sheds or houses, and only flies when disturbed. With the set¬ 
ting of the sun they leave their hiding places, and play around the slender coco-palms, which nod mysteriously 
in the evening breeze. They are then sometimes attracted by lighted lamps in the houses and obscure the light 
with their broad wings (Martin). — £ above chiefly brown, the yellowish submarginal band is narrower or broa¬ 
der according to the locality, and is in the <$<$ rarely, in the $9 always apically proximally extended. Under surface 
in the wet season form with the longitudinal bands sharply defined, in the dry form indistinct, always whitish 
brown; $ with a long brown hair tuft about the middle of the inner part of the hindwing, behind which is 
inserted a second, smaller and shorter, proximal and more analy directed. -— - adustatus Fruhst. must be consi- adustatus. 
clered the most northerly local race; the type belongs to the extreme dry form. The specimens are therefore 
also very small, the upper surface in $ brown without distinct submarginal band, but with slightly paler, 
rather yellowish distal area on the forewings. The $ is smaller than most specimens from the Sunda Islands, 
still lighter brown than the A, with broad, yellow-brown marginal border to all the wings, and a feebly 
indicated, yellowish subapical bar. The underside is strikingly pale and washed out. Here also the whitish 
median band is extremely broad, but the brown band very narrow. The ocelli are only slightly black ringed, 
with small white spots, and lighter yellow than in the from the Sunda Islands. Flies in January; in the Temple 
gardens of Bangkok in Siam. — Just as adustatus represents the extreme of one form of the dry period, so 
friderlci Fruhst. described from Tenasserim, shows the furthest progressive maximum in the development friderici. 
of the wet season form. The under surface has unusually broad, almost pure white, silvery longitudinal bands, 
which give a certain resemblance to A. perakana Hour, and perakana taenia ; there is also a further inclina¬ 
tion towards the $ colouring, found in no other phidippus race, in the shape of a broadly diffused, slightly 
reddish ochre-yellow subcostal spot on the upper surface of the forewing, whereby the marking receives a cha¬ 
racter reminding of another speeies occuring together with phidippus friderici, viz. binghami Fruhst., which is 
figured on PL 105 a, but erroneously lettered schonbergi. — On the Malay Peninsula phidippus is continued 
in a geographical race which connects friderici from Burma and Tenasserim with eutropius from Sumatra. 
This is chersias subsp. nov. ; the S3 of the wet form differ from friderici $$ in the absence of the lighter chersias. 
subapical area on the upper surface of the forewings, and beneath by the still distinct, but less conspicuous 
white bands. Yet all the Perak specimens of phidippus bear such conspicuous white bands, that Moore 
confused them with perakana Hour. In correspondence with the almost uniformly damp climate, the dry season 
form is not developed to the same degree as in the subspecies from Siam, and the pale longitudinal bands, 
which in adustatus are almost of finger-breadth, do not exceed ordinary dimensions. I should include under 
chersias also a series of examples from Perak and Singapore in my collection, which differ from the sumatran 
specimens in the uniform colour of the upper surface and the noticeable narrower brown bands on the underside 
of all wings. -—- andatnanensis Fruhst. is founded on specimens with unusually pale upper surface, showing, andamanen- 
especially beneath a pale, chiefly yellowish distal region, and are traversed by very broad longitudinal sls ‘ 
bands. This strongly divergent race is only sparingly represented in continental collections, although Moore 
states, that it was taken in large numbers at Port Blair in Roepstorff’s time and sent to England. Moore 
knew of a $ which, like many Taenaris, had supplementary eye-spots on the hindwings, among them a com¬ 
plete ocellus between the lower median nervules and a blind eye between the lower radial and the first median. 
- — eutropius subsp. nov. inhabits Sumatra, probably also Billiton and Bangka, spreading over the alluvial part eutropius. 
of the large island as far as the foot-hills. The specimens are large, the colouring of the upper surface is very 
constant, corresponding with the unceasing rains of that climate, and thus brought into contrast with their 
Javanese sisters who are subjected to seasonal variations. $ with relatively broad, full ochre-yellow subapical spot 
on the fore wing and sharply defined submarginal crescents. The brown longitudinal bands on the underside are 
bounded by whitish violet streaks. In North-east- Sumatra, together with the large, broad-banded specimens 
we find also, but rarely, smaller examples with greatly narrowed median brown longitudinal bands, which recall 
