NILGIRIS 103 
I quite easily netted five G. paulina in one swoop, and seven in 
another. 
Then Hehomoia glaucippe came along, reconnoitred the position 
with great circumspection, and settled warily for a second or two, 
but darted swiftly off at the least movement on my part. Neverthe¬ 
less, with care and patience, I managed to secure a couple of speci¬ 
mens. My old friend Papilio demoleus came next and soon settled 
down a short distance away from the Whites; he was shortly followed 
by another of his own kind, and yet another: they all settled close 
together, within a hand’s-breadth, forming an exclusive community, 
and continued to drink steadily. All at once a blue-green flash, and 
Papilio telephus sailed close past me; again and again he came, 
and finally, looking askance at the vulgar assemblage of Whites 
and Orange-tips, settled quite close to the P. demoleus, evidently 
preferring their more select company. This occurred several times. 
P. telephus, when settled with wings erect, displayed an unexpected 
beauty, for, in place of the ebony and emeralds on the upper-surface, 
it showed beneath nothing but sheeny mother-of-pearl picked out with 
tiny rubies. By patient watching and judicious swooping I secured 
three specimens, and, be it recorded, these were all I saw that day. 
So much for water; what share the decoys had in my success it is 
hard to say, but Mr. E. E. Green, of Peradeniya, told me that decoys 
were efficacious, and Mr. Denton, of Regent Street, says that he has 
used even paper decoys with success. 
The congregation of butterflies at damp sand was observed by 
Bates on the banks of the Amazon in 1849. He noted that they 
were all males, mostly of the genus Gallidryas. 1 Indeed Sir J. D. 
Hooker had the year before noted butterflies sitting on damp sand 
“ in thousands ” in the Ranjit valley, Sikkim. 2 
Mr. E. Andre noted a similar thing in Venezuela in 1897, where 
the attraction was the foul mud of a farmyard: the butterflies were 
chiefly Gallidryas , with some Heliconius , Papilio, Metamorpha and 
Gaerois. He adds: “Each species tried to herd with its own kind/’ 
but he says nothing as to sexes. There is a capital photograph in 
his book of a group of Gallidryas , 3 
Doubtless this habit of butterflies is well known to all tropical 
collectors. I had myself in Germany, some thirty-four years before, 
noted swarms of Blues drinking at small puddles in the road— 
several species together. 4 At Mortehoe, on the 1st of August, 1905, 
1 “ Naturalist on the Amazons,” 1st edn., p. 249. 
2 “ Himalayan Journals,” Yol. I., p. 152 (1854). 
3 “Naturalist in the Guianas,” p. 142. 4 See p. 25, supra. 
