HESPERIID^E. 
135 
indistinct whitish lateral line each side along the spiracles, due to the tracheae showing through the 
skin. Legs pale yellowish. Underside and prolegs greenish. Head oblong, dark red-brown, 
with a broad white stripe down each side of the face, and an indistinct whitish spot just above the 
jaws. 
Telicota augias, Linn. 
A very common Skipper here, found wherever there are clumps of scrub bamboo, and 
very fond of Lantana flowers. It is more or less on the wing in every month, but is most numerous 
in the autumn. It flies swiftly and erratically, but haunts a particular retreat for a long time, and 
is active all day long, seeming rather to prefer a hot sun. Both sexes vary considerably in dimen¬ 
sions. This Hesperid is often seized (usually by the head) by a small white or pale yellow com¬ 
pactly-built spider, which spins no web, but lies in wait with its legs neatly tucked up out of sight 
on a flower. With some flowers it harmonises beautifully and is very hard to detect. Sometimes 
it seizes the Skipper by the proboscis and drags it away thus. 
Fig. 28, PI. XIV is from a £ taken in November, but this Skipper occurs every month in 
the year. The $ is easily distinguished from the $ by its much less extent of yellow (also of a 
paler tint) on the upperside of the forewing. It has the sub-marginal and apical yellow spots as in 
the but smaller; the rest of the forewing is dark brown, except for a rather large yellow spot at 
the outer end of the disc, cell, and an indistinct streak of yellow just above the costal nervure. 
In the hindwing the spot of yellow is wanting in the disc, cell, though there are yellow hairs there. 
On the underside the sexes are very much alike. Fig 5, PI. Vila is the upperside of a $. 
Egg, hemispherical, smooth, whitish; laid singly either side of bamboo leaves, the food- 
plant of the larva. 
Larva, just hatched, yellowish-white, head black. Later, smooth, greenish; head dull 
yellowish, an inverted \/-shaped brownish marking down the face; the two last segments yellowish 
with a darker transverse dorsal marking. Fullgrown, smooth, of a uniform greenish-yellow, a black 
“P-shaped marking on the back of the last segment; head yellow, slightly edged round with black, 
and a blackish bar down the centre of the face, widening over the jaws. The heart or dorsal vessel 
in these semi-transparent larvae can be seen pulsating very distinctly. It is a long thin tube just 
under the skin of the back in the median line of the larva, extending almost from head to anus. 
The tracheae or branching air-tubes connecting with the spiracles can also be observed, ramifying 
in all directions like white rootlets. The larva when very young spins a few strands of silk 
across the tip of a leaf, thus drawing up the edges and forming a trough in which it lies. Later on 
it twists a leaf helically into a tube in the usual manner. 
Pupa, smooth, yellowish-brown, darker on the anterior segments. Slightly dusted with 
white powder. Attached by the tip of the abdomen only. The larva pupates within a leaf-tube, 
lining it more or less completely with a very thin and loose-textured film of silk. The pupa has 
the power of setting-up rapid vibratory movements if disturbed, as in the case of the pupa of 
Matapa aria. 
