98 
INDIA 
an average altitude of from 6500 to 7500 ft. This plateau consists 
for the most part of grassy downs with here and there “ sholas,” or 
thickets of mixed growth, very beautiful at this time of the year 
owing to the red colour of the young leaves of the preponderant tree. 
Unfortunately, alike for the entomologist and the artist, these 
“ sholas ” have been largely cut down to make way for the extensive 
Government plantations of Eucalyptus, which are by comparison 
dull, dreary and monotonous. 
On the way up the cog-wheel railway I saw on the side of the 
cutting two beautiful blue-green Papilios, which may have been 
either P. telephus , Eeld., or P. teredon , Feld. At about 4500 ft. I 
netted a Neptis eurynome from the train in motion. 
It was evidently too early in the year to get many butterflies at 
tJtakamand, the elevation making the nights cool, so it was necessary 
to seek out sheltered flowery banks facing south, or preferably south¬ 
east. In two such spots within a very circumscribed area Talicada 
nyseus was common; a single example also occurred (along with the 
inevitable Pyrameis cardui) on the grassy top of an isolated and 
exposed peak of about 8000 ft. This Lycaenid is quite typical of 
South India and Ceylon; it is a conspicuous insect on the wing, its 
tricolour of black, white and orange-red (which should delight 
German entomologists), making it look larger than it really is. 
Terias hecabe was rather common, but worn. A female Polyomm- 
atus baeticus and several Pyrameis indica were also old friends, and 
the same applies to two or three Papilio aristolochiae, which were a 
good deal the worse for wear, seen at flowers in the hotel garden. 
A few Yphthima chenui, Guer., occurred at about 7800 ft., the 
only Satyrine I met with at Utakamand. Ganoris canidia flew up to 
8000 ft.; a male had a distinct smell like that of our G. rapae. I 
submitted the living butterfly to my daughter and her lady friend, 
who both noticed the scent, though unable to describe it. When 
mignonette was suggested for comparison they both said “ No ” ; but 
when sweet-briar was mentioned they said it was like that, my 
daughter speaking the more confidently of the two. 
At about 7400 ft. I took a female Catophaga paulina, Cram., and 
also a fine female of Hiposcritia narendra , Moore, quite a Ceylon 
species. The specimen is labelled “ flies fast: rather common from 
7400 ft. to 8400 ft.” It is but too evident that I had not recognized 
that I was catching anything out of the common, and it is more than 
probable that I confounded the females of Catophaga and Tachyris 
with Hiposcritia , so that I am not by any means disposed to trust 
the statement that PI. narendra was common then and there. One 
