1895.] L. de Niceville & Dr. L. Martin— Butterflies of Sumatra. 491 
down, the black antennae of G. crocale being sometimes found with the 
ocellated underside of C. catilla , and vice versa. The restriction of the 
yellow coloration of the upperside of both wings of the male to the 
basal area, or its equal diffusion oyer the whole surface, correlated with 
the presence or absence of the ocelli on the underside, is also quite 
an unstable feature by which to distinguish the two species. Dr. Martin 
writes:— 
“ I am quite unable to follow Mr. de Niceville in his amalgamation 
of G. crocale and G. catilla , and am forced to keep them separate for the 
following reasons:— 
“ C. crocale, the far commoner species, occurs in Sumatra on roads, 
near houses and gardens, and is never found in the forest. It some¬ 
times appears in large numbers, in which case the larvae are very 
destructive, as in January, 1893, near the Poengei Estate, five kilometers 
north of Bindjei, they destroyed in a short time a fine plantation of 
young iron-wood trees, Cassia florida, Vahl., valued at least at $ 3,000, 
by eating up all the leaves and suffocating the plants. All the grass 
and every low shrub near this murdered plantation was covered with 
the pupae, and after the butterflies had emerged, the whole place looked 
as if there was a heavy snow-storm in progress, the air being full of 
large flakes of snow. I took there many hundreds of specimens of both 
sexes, but amongst them was not a singled. catilla. This seems to 
me to be an abundantly conclusive fact. The antennae of C. crocale are 
black in both sexes, and the males have the underside of both wings simply 
yellow and white of a washed-out shade. The tuft of hair on the inner 
margin of the foiewing is whitish. There are two forms of the female 
of 0. crocale :—I, the form figured by Distant in Rhopalocera Malayana, 
pi. xxv, fig. 12, without any yellow colour near the base of both wings 
on the upperside; Sumatran specimens are even somewhat darker 
than Distant’s figure, and show on the upperside of the hindwing 
four or five submarginal black lunules, this form being the rarer one. 
II, the commoner form is brighter, not so black as the first form, the 
basal half of the upperside of both wings is nearly as yellow as in the 
male, the black markings on the costa, apex, at the end of the discoidal 
cell, and the outer margin of the forewing on the upperside are sharper 
defined. G. crocale is enormously common, and occurs throughout 
the year; the males are fond of flowers, and especially of the Hibiscus 
rosa-sinensis, Linnaeus, to the deep crimson cups of which they present 
a beautiful contrast when settled. The larva feeds on the leaves of the 
above-mentioned Cassia florida , and sometimes in company with Gatopsilia 
pyranthe , Linnaeus, on Cassia alata , Linnaeus, and is of a yellowish-green 
or yellowish-brown colour, with a lateral blackish-brown streak. The 
J. ii 62 
