Page:The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Butterflies Vol 1).djvu/28

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Egg. “Much higher than wide, leathery, radiate, with numerous broad flattened ribs and distinct cross-lines reticulate over a small area at the apex” (Doherty).

Larva. Smooth, cylindrical or subcylindrical, with from two to four pairs of flashy tenticula. Colours conspicuous, generally black, yellow and red.

Imago. Wings ample, terminal margins never dentate or caudate; cell of both fore and hind wings closed; vein 1 in fore wing forked close to base, none of the veins basally swollen; no prediscoidal cell in hind wing; antennæ slender, filiform or gradually clavate, bare, without scales; eyes naked, never hairy; palpi slightly compressed, somewhat short and erect; body slender.

The forms in this subfamily are highly specialized, for in addition to the reduction in the number of legs used in walking common to all the members of the family Nymphalidæ, the Danainæ have without exception developed what to our senses, at any rate, is an acrid disagreeable odour and taste accompanied with a though leathery constituency of body that to a certain extent evidently protects them from insectivorous enemies. In the great majority of the forms also, secondary sexual characters in the shape of specialized scales, tufts of hair, brushes, or fans having particular odours are prominent.