WEST AFRICAN LEPIDOPTERA. 55 



Contributions to a knowledge of the L.EPIDOPTERA 

 of West Africa. 



BY REV. W. J. HOLLAND, D.D., PH.D. 



PAPEK II. 



List of African SPHINGID^ received during- the years 1887 and 1888. 



It requires some degree of assurance on the part of the student to 

 publish a species as new to science when he reflects upon the manner 

 in which the earth has been scoured in every direction by ardent 

 collectors in quest of the curious and the beautiful in nature. The 

 dark forests and grassy prairies of equatorial Africa are, however, 

 as yet to some extent a terra incognita to the entomologists of the 

 world, and they teem with the most beautiful and curious forms of 

 insect life. It is from this region that the species described in the 

 following paper have come, and I am indebted for the specimens 

 upon which my descriptions are based to the Rev. A. C. Good, of 

 the American Presbyterian mission at Gaboon, and to Mrs. Louise 

 Reutlinger, of the same mission, who was stationed during her stay 

 in the country at Benita. The specimens collected by Mr. Good 

 were taken principally at Kangwe, upon the banks of the Ogove 

 River, about 165 miles from its mouth. Kangwe is only two or 

 three miles from the Equator. Benita is a mission station ui)on the 

 coast about 110 miles north of the Equator. 



In studying the specimens before me I have availed myself of all 

 the literature upon the subject accessible to me, yet regret that I 

 have been unable to consult one or two papers by the Dutch ento- 

 mologists which treat of the African Heterocera. I am under special 

 obligations to Mr. Arthur G. Butler, F.L.S., F.Z.S., and Mr. Her- 

 bert Druce, F.L.S., F.Z.S., for invaluable assistance most freely and 

 courteously extended to me in the determination of some of the spe- 

 cies named in this paper. Their opinion that what I have ventured 

 to describe as species new to science are such indeed, has greatly 

 encouraged me in venturing upon the publication of the following 

 pages. 



