74 
INDIA 
Toliganj. December 7th, 1903. 
About two miles from Baliganj, and due south of Calcutta (about 
half a mile beyond the Sports Club), is the locality referred to as 
Toliganj. Here, too, is an old abandoned garden, but lacking the 
elements of departed grandeur that give a poetic colouring to de Nice- 
ville’s old hunting-ground. The prominent features are a great pro¬ 
fusion of Lantana in full bloom, a Bamboo grove and a good deal of 
thorny jungle. The day that I was there the Lantana was the chosen 
haunt of great numbers of the bigger butterflies such as Delias 
eucharis, Tirumala limniace, Danaida plexippus, Papilio pammon, 
mostly worn, P. aristolochiae, and a few P. demoleus, together with an 
occasional Nepheronia hippia, with his broad wings proudly expanded 
to view. The sight of these big fellows, expanding from three to four 
inches, quietly settled on the flowers, or fluttering after the manner 
of Papilio, or grandly sailing around—gorgeous in their white, yellow 
and scarlet, black and grey blue, mahogany-brown and black, black 
and cream colour, black and coral-red, black and yellow, or sky-blue 
and black—afforded indeed a glorious sight not soon to be forgotten. 
Alas! such a tropical glory takes much colour out of the most vivid 
mental pictures of butterfly life at home. 
In a shady grove not far from these flowers Danaida plexippus 
was simply swarming, as many as ten or even twenty being in sight 
at once, for it is one of the most gregarious butterflies that I have 
met with. A few observations on this species and Tirumala limniace 
failed to detect any odour, but it was far otherwise with Delias 
eucharis , of which several specimens had a distinct sweet scent, very 
like that of G. rapae. My strong impression is that this scent is 
confined to the male, but I cannot, unfortunately, speak with 
certainty on the point. The male of Huphina nerissa has a distinct 
scent, also like that of G. rapae, although the butterfly itself more 
resembles G. napi. The scent of these two butterflies is neither 
so strong nor so unmistakably characteristic as that of G. napi, but 
its existence is quite beyond question. 
These scents are not easy to deal with. The human nasal organ 
is but a poor affair at best, moreover scents are very hard to describe, 
and these butterfly odours are only suggestive of, certainly not 
identical with, those to which I have, for want of any better standard, 
compared them. Then the scents are transient and may easily be 
scattered by the wind or overpowered by neighbouring flowers. Again 
the scales, independently of any scent, are irritating to the mucous 
