March, '03] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. Q5 



tasting of insects by man lias value as evidence of the likes and dislikes 

 of insect-eating animals. 



By breeding the one from the eggs of the other, Mr. Marshall has 

 proved that the butterfly Precis sesatnus is the widely different dry season 

 form of P. natalensis, and P. siniia the wet phase of P. antilope, al- 

 though absolutely unlike in its coloring. These results naturally suggest 

 that other species of this genus observed only in the wet or in the dry 

 season respectively are similarly related. It is observed that the habits, 

 size, weight, and colors of the seasonal forms, or phases of such species 

 differ greatly in the adult stage although " the larvse are identical." The 

 dry season phases live in shady places and alight under banks or on rocks, 

 are larger and heavier, sex for sex, than the wet phases, usually have a 

 duller type of coloring on the upper-side, sometimes of quite a different 

 hue, while the under-side more or less resembles a withered leaf. The 

 wet phases live in more open situations and are conspicuously and often 

 brilliantly colored. These differences are in part referred to the fact 

 that in the dry season food for birds and lizards is less abundant and 

 hence the butterflies being more exposed to their attacks have acquired 

 the protective coloring. Prof. Poulton holds that "the dry cryptic phases 

 are ancestral as compared with the conspicuous wet phases," that the 

 latter have been modified out of the former, and that the conspicuous- 

 ness is a warning coloration associated with a lower degree of palatibility 

 than exists in "an immense number of other species which abound dur- 

 ing the wet season in the same stations." Precis is not included in Mr. 

 Marshall's list (p. 433) of "the South African genera possessing more or 

 less undoubted distasteful qualities ;" of those which are included, none, 

 with the exception of some species of Acrcza, exhibit any change of 

 color during the dry season which can be construed as protective. 

 "Species of Precis entirely restricted to forest regions possess cryptic 

 undersides and habits all the year round, although the dry-season gener- 

 ations are more completely cryptic." 



From the extensive section (40 pp.) entitled "Description and discus- 

 sion of material bearing on mimicry in South African Rhopalocera 

 collected by Guy A. K. Marshall, and the record of observations made 

 by him," by Prof. Poulton, the following may be cited : A given model 

 may be mimicked by species belonging even to three different genera, 

 inhabiting the same locality and flying at the same time. " A study of 

 mimetic forms may enable us to reconstruct the lost stages through which 

 the older model has passed." "Mimicry in Lycrenidae and to a less 

 extent in Hesperidae a character of the Ethiopian region. ... I can only 

 suggest the possibility that the number of feasible models of moderate 

 and small size furnished by the abundant Acraeinas of Africa may furnish 

 an explanation." An interesting discussion on whether mimicry in the 

 Nymphalinae is Batesian or Miillerian. 



Warning colors and mimicry (almost wholly Miillerian) are described 

 for many South African Coleoptera. The former are found in caralmls 



