PIE RID EE. 
121 
in “ The Tribes on my Frontier,” p. 113, quoted by Mr. Distant (R-hop. Malay, 
p. 285), observes that “ butterflies of some kinds—especially those energetic 
greenish-white ones of the family surnamed Gallidryas —are sometimes seized with 
a mania for migrating to the far West. I have stood near one of the parade-grounds 
at Poona, and watched them, with scarce a pause to rest their wings or sip a flower, 
from eight or nine o’clock until the afternoon, as far as the eye could reach, the host 
kept streaming past.” 
“ It was probably butterflies principally belonging to the Pieridte,” writes Mr. 
W. L. Distant (Rhop. Malayana, p. 284), “ which were observed by Mr. E. L. Arnold 
in Southern India, on one of his excursions in the dry-season.” He relates that he 
“ came upon a quiet nullah meandering through the jungle. The bed by chance, 
just there, was broad and sandy, and the stream a single thread that seemed every 
moment in danger of vanishing. But to my astonished eyes the whole place 
appeared a garden of flowers of a thousand colours, and crowded so close by the 
water that the sand could scarcely be seen. I looked and looked again, and then 
stepped down to observe the parterre closer; but, as I did so, these animated 
blossoms sprang into the air in a huge cloud, and the truth was plain that they were 
a countless host of thirsty butterflies, collected from the forest all round to drink 
at this thread of liquid ” (On the Indian Hills, ii. 314 (1881). Mr. Gf. F. 
Hampson writes, “ the only regular flight of butterflies that I have observed 
in the Nilgiri District, S. India, is one that takes place at the end of May and 
beginning of June, and consists principally of Gatojpsilias and Gatophagas (with some 
Limnainae and Euploeinae). Its direction is from West to East, and the object may 
be to avoid the S.-W. Monsoon due on June 15th, and sure to deluge the Western 
and Northern Slopes for many weeks together, with hardly a break” (Epist. Sept. 
14th, 1886). Sir J. E. Tennent, in his Nat. History of Ceylon, p. 403, says, “at 
times the extraordinary sight presented itself of flights of these delicate creatures, 
generally of a white or pale yellow hue, apparently miles in breadth and of such 
prodigious extension as to occupy hours, and even days, uninterruptedly in their 
passage—whence coming no one knows, whither going no one can tell. The butter¬ 
flies I have seen in these wonderful migrations in Ceylon were mostly Gallidryas 
Hilaria , G. Alcrneone , and G. Pyranthe, with straggling individuals of the genus 
Puploea (E. Gore and P. Prothoe ). Their passage took place in April and May 
generally in a north-easterly direction. A friend of mine travelling from Kandy to 
Kornegalle drove for nine miles through a cloud of white butterflies which were 
passing across the road by which he went.” Dr. Thwaites, in his Ceylon MS. Notes, 
writes, “This family of butterflies contains several species which are remarkable, 
like some of the Euploeinm, for their apparently migratory flights. At certain times 
of the year immense hosts of these butterflies, mostly of a white colour or nearly 
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