106 THE BUTTERFLIES OF CEYLON 
all over the low-country as far north as Mankulam, and I 
found it once in extraordinary abundance at Anuradhapura in 
December. The male is very fond of settling on the sand in 
river-beds and on wet roads in the hot weather. The female 
is easiest to catch when laying her eggs. 
t&r. Papitio (LA@RTIAS) POLYTES ROMULUS, E. Lertias 
romulus, M.: Papilio polytes, B. Evans says: “ Jordan 
confines polytes to China, giving the Indian race as romulus .’” 
As is well known, there are three varieties of the female: 
rst, like the ¢; 2nd, mimics P. aristoloche 92; and ard, 
mimics P. hector 9. The first has been named cyrus, the 
second folytes or stychius, and the third romulus. The one 
which mimics avislolochie has usually in Ceylon a white spot 
in the cell (like the race ceylonica), but sometimes the white 
patch does not commence till well below it. The one which 
mimics hector is, as might be expected, a far better mimic 
of the female fector than of the male, though it is sometimes 
compared with the latter in articles on mimicry. It has been 
suggested that the crimson bodies of avistolochie and hector 
would spoil the mimicry, but in the females of both almost 
the whole of the upper surface of the body is black, and the 
abdomen is so carried in flight that the crimson would be 
quite invisible when viewed by a bird from above. 
It joins the flights in great numbers, especially in Novem- 
ber and December, and I have noticed that in these flighis the 
variety which mimics Aector is usually the commonest. At 
Haldummulla hecior is far iess common than aristolochiea, 
but these flights were coming from the dry low-country, where 
the opposite is the case. When the flights are not on, the 
variety, like hector, is by far the rarest at Haldummulla, 
and the one like the male is the commonest. In the flights 
of November, 1919, the cyrus variety of 9 was most plentiful, 
and the stychius and romulus varieties were in almost equal 
numbers. On this occasion the males rarely showed any 
trace of red spots below. 
The males may often be found settled on mud or wet sand. 
The females visit flowers, but are best caught when laying 
their eggs. They are very easy to breed, but occasionally 
