( 476 ) 



males, and hence were inclined to express, more or less tardily, donbts abont the 

 number of distinct species being really so large as some anthors accepted it to be 

 Only Dr. Butler speaks with great coufideuce on the question. He tells us more 

 than once that there is no great difficnlty either in distinguishing certain species 

 which others had not recognised, or in mating the sexes correctly. However, in 

 looking over Dr. Butler's various lists of African Butterflies and his Revision of the 

 genus Charaxes, it will be noticed that sometimes individuals which Dr. Butler 

 pronounced in one place to belong undoubtedly to one species are, in another paper, 

 referred to a different one. The question of mating and distinguishing the males 

 can, therefore, hardly be so easy to solve as Dr. Bntler thinks it to be. In fact, it 

 will be seen further on that, for instance, the males which Dr. Butler calls rosae in 

 his Revision belong partly to ethalion, while his males of viola are not at all the males 

 of this form. To show the difficulties that meet here the classifier we mention that 

 eighteen names have been bestowed on the insects under consideration, and that Dr. 

 Bntler, in 1896, enumerated these Charaxes as ten distinct species (five of which 

 have Dr. Bntler as author), while Aurivillins, in 1899, treated them as belonging to 

 six species, of which he did not venture to give distinguishing characters except in 

 the female sex. Moreover, " it is singular," as Dr. Butler says. I.e., " that even 

 carefnl Lepidopterists have agreed in regarding two distinct females as sexes in 

 more than one instance." It is indeed surprising that Hewitsou (pkaeus, cedreatis), 

 Butler (alladinis), Dewitz (alladinis), Trimen (p/iaeus), and Standinger (chiron) all 

 blundered in describing a female as a male. But, to us, this shows only that great 

 care should be exercised before one confidently expresses any opinion on these insects. 



We are sorry to say that it was the long time we spent on the study of 

 Charaxes ethalion and allies and the tawny Indian Charaxes which has prevented 

 the speedy publication of this monograph. 



Negative results are seldom satisfactory. And almost entirely negative would 

 be the results of our researches in the present group of forms of Charaxes, if 

 we considered it the aim of the Lepidopterist merely to find constant distinguishing 

 characters between forms which appear to him to represent distinct species. Very 

 positive and hence satisfactory, however, we find our results, if we regard them 

 from the higher standpoint of the systematist who searches for the degree of 

 blood-relationship of the forms, and of the biologist who wants reasonable ex- 

 planations of great differences in closely allied insects and of similarities in forms 

 which are not so nearly related. 



By comparing a very large material and dissecting a great number of males 

 from different localities— there are over 220 SS in the Tring Museum, about 

 half of which we have examined as to their sexual organs — we feel justified in 

 regarding it as a fact that only two kinds of males are constantly distinguishable. 

 And from this fact we draw the conclnsion that there are neither ten, nor six, 

 but only two distinct species, the one (ethalion) occurring only in East Africa, 

 from Natal to Taveta and most likely further north, while the second (etheocles) 

 inhabits the whole of tropical Africa from Senegambia and Abyssinia to Damaraland, 

 Transvaal, and Delagoa Bay ; the former is relatively constant in both sexes, and 

 the latter is polymorphic in either sex, but especially in the female. 



This result, we confess, is not in accordance with our anticipation. We 

 thought that close researches would show that there were three distinct forms of 

 males (not connected by intcrgraduate specimens): namely (1) viola in Senegambia, 

 Abyssinia and East Africa in two subspecies (viola and kir/a), (2) ethalion in 



