( 477 ) 



East Africa from Natal to Brit. E. Afr., and (3) etheocles all over tropical Africa, 

 except the north and south, in numerous individual varieties. However, the 

 Senegalese viola males are, as we have found, not always distinguishable from 

 certain East African examples, and these are gradually connected by intermediate 

 specimens with etheocles males. Hence we do not see that there is any justification 

 in classifying these insects as more than two species, ethalion and etheocles. 



The polymorphism, or better, the polychromatism, in the female sex of 

 Ch. etheocles is astonishingly great, but does not surpass that of certain other 

 Nymphalidae, or of Papilionidae. 



The variously coloured females of etheocles can be grouped according to the 

 pattern of the upper surface into six main forms, these forms being : 



(1) similar to the ? ? or c?<J of the many other Charaxes, for instance, 



ameliae and imperialis ; 



(2) similar to the male etheocles, the white markings of the upperside 



having almost entirely disappeared ; 



(3) similar to the ? ? of Ch. violetta and cithaeron ; 



(4) similar to the ? of Oh. bohemani ; 



(6) similar to the ¥ ? of Ch. tiridates and numenes ; 



(6) similar to the i of Ch. bohemani. 

 If we look upon the females of Ch. etheocles from this point of view, the 

 polychromatism becomes less perplexing, the acquisition of various patterns in 

 the same species assuming a definite meaning. The pattern of form (1) is the 

 normal one from which the other patterns have been derived; it is very variable. 

 If the more or less great similarity between the females of this form and other 

 Charaxes is due to all these insects having preserved a pattern which approaches 

 the ancestral one, the agreement between the other forms of etheocles- ? respectively 

 with bohemani, tiridates, etc., must accordingly be the outcome of parallel develop- 

 ment caused, as one is wont to say, by the protection which similarity in colour 

 affords the individuals that associate together. Such an association of etheocles-'i 

 with other similarly coloured Charaxes is a fact observed first by Selous ; but 

 we have very little further information on this point. It need scarcely be 

 mentioned that in a group so difficult to deal with as the present one mistakes 

 as to identification are hardly avoidable ; for this reason the lists of captures 

 are not wholly reliable, and hence there is some difficulty iu ascertaining the 

 geographical distribution of the various forms. So much, however, is certain 

 that the varions ? -forms of Ch. etheocles have not the same distribution. In 

 this respect it is very interesting to note that, for instance, the ? -form called 

 cedreatis is found only iu West Africa, where Ch. tiridates occurs commonly, the 

 Jemale of which it resembles, and that the forms agreeing in appearance with the sexes 

 of Ch. bohemani are also restricted to the area inhabited by this species ; ihe females 

 of form (3) do also not seem to go farther north than the Congo, occurring 

 commonly in East and South-West Africa ; while the form (1), which is the 

 only one met with in the coast districts of Sierra Leone, is apparently very rare 

 in the Congo basin. The ?-form kirki found in British and German East Africa 

 has no representative in West Africa except in Senegambia. It is evident tliat there 

 is an important geographical element in the variation of Ch. etheocles, but the data 

 available do not allow us to differentiate more than two subspecies of '7;. etheocles, 

 the one which inhabiting Senegambia and the Hinterlands of Sierra Leono, Gold 

 Coast, Niger and probably of the Cameroons (Ch. etheocles viola) is monochromatic 



