CALCUTTA 
75 
membrane, and any one who has tried to use the sense of smell for 
diagnostic purposes must know how even the most volatile perfume 
is apt to linger on, lurking a? it would appear in the cavernous 
recesses of the nose. Of course it is much easier to determine in the 
field whether or no a scent is sexual in the case of those species in 
which the sexes are distinguishable by very obvious characters. 
Lastly, it should never be forgotten that in all probability the scents 
described are far more obvious to the insects themselves than to 
human observers. 1 
Only a solitary representative of the Euploea group appears among 
the Toliganj specimens, but its envelope bears the note: a Common, 
has a slight peculiar scent, rather disagreeable. 5 ’ Most probably 
I believed this at the time to be the common Calcutta species Crastia 
core , but it turns out to be Pademma kollari , Feld., and it is now 
impossible to say what those were that I passed over or missed. 
In variety the Toliganj butterflies were disappointing, but, besides 
the above named, they included a very fine female Ixias pyrene, the 
sole Orange-tip seen at Calcutta ; a few Catopsilia pyranthe; several 
Ergolis ariadne ; Elymnias undularis, not common; plenty of that 
very distinct Blue, Neopithecops zalmora; a single specimen of Loxura 
atymnus, and plenty of Yphthima hubneri, Y.marshalli, Y.philomela 
and Nychitona xiphia. 
The list is closed by “ Melanitis ismene, lover of darkness, as its 
name seems to say. It flitted about everywhere dressed in all the 
tints of fallen leaves, or, alighting among them, fell partly on one 
side and was one of them.” 2 I quote the words of E. H. A(itkin), 
that keen observer and telling writer. The few specimens that I 
saw that day were very dark and of the dry-season form. A note 
made at the time says: “ This shade-loving species, which only flies 
for a very short distance and settles on the ground, has a ‘ list ’ to 
the right of 20-30°, making it very like a dead leaf.” 
A pretty blue and black parasitic bee, Crocisa Jiistrio, Fabr., was 
caught feeding on the wing like a Sphinx. 
On December 8th, I visited the grand Botanic Gardens at Howrah, 
but it was too late in the day for many butterflies to be about. Very 
late in the afternoon, just before leaving the gardens, I noticed a few 
Danaida plexippus (genutia ) fluttering about a Palm-tree prior to 
settling down for the night. On looking carefully I saw on one 
of the huge leaf-stalks, some twelve or fourteen feet from the ground, 
a cluster of the butterflies hanging together like swarming bees . By 
pelting with sticks and stones the cluster was broken up and proved 
1 See Chapter X., § 1. 2 A Naturalist on the Proiol, p. 203. 
