NILGIRIS 
101 
and went up and down by train to avoid the nocturnal terrors of the 
deadly malaria-carrier—the tiny, innocent-looking Anopheles. 
The collecting-ground was various, and included, besides bushy 
jungle with plenty of flowers near the station, large irrigated Banana 
and Betel-nut (Areca catechu ) plantations as well as the bed of the 
river with its bordering woods. 
The first thing to catch the eye was Papilio hector , Linn., and very 
magnificent he looked fluttering at the flowers of Lantana in his 
crimson and black suit set off with white. This is indeed one of the 
most striking butterflies that I met with in my travels, with its 
wings expanding four inches and upwards. It proved to be distinctly 
common, but the collector does not get within reach of every Papilio 
that he sees, nor indeed does he succeed in netting all that are struck 
at. j P. hector was accompanied by plenty of P. pammon and a few P. 
aristolochiae . One of the P. hector brought home is remarkable for 
the fact that the whole of the tips and half the hind-margins of 
both hind-wings have apparently been bitten off, almost absolutely 
symmetrically, by some foe. If the red spots on the under-side be 
really “ warning marks 99 this is the more noteworthy. 
A boggy, but sunny, comer of an irrigated banana-garden pro¬ 
duced single specimens of the fine Skippers Tagiades atticus, Fabr., 
and Tagiades ohscurus , Mabille (< distans , Moore). 
This same garden and the adjoining plantations of betel-palm 
yielded a few Melanitis ismene, a fair number of Mycalesis perseus 
as well as Yphthima marshalli and Y. philomela ; there was also 
abundance of the pretty and very distinct Yphthima ceylonica , with 
its silvery-white hind-wings, which tried, not without occasional 
success, to pass itself off as a Blue. A few hasty observations on 
this species when at rest failed to detect any such “ list ” as is 
common in many members of the family. 
From Kallar I sent home two specimens of Mycalesis perseus, one 
an ordinary example of the dry-season form in which the ocelli are 
indicated by faint dark dots, the other (unfortunately very tattered) 
in which the full complement of ocelli on the under-surface is 
indicated by the conspicuous chalky-white spots of varying sizes, 
to wit, two large and one small on the fore-wings and two large and 
five small on the hind-wings. Three of these spots are faintly visible 
on the upper-surface. There are no rings and no pupils to the spots. 
It would appear to be a unique aberration of the dry-season form. 
In the shade along with the dusky Satyrs was the inevitable 
Nychitona xiphia. Solomon caught a solitary aberrant male of 
Elymnias caudata, But!., approximating in colouring and markings 
