NOTES ON MIMICRY AND VARIATION — RAINBOW. 73 



respect. The larvae are gregarious and " when first produced 

 they are green, with black heads, and are thinly covered with 

 hairs. After the first moult the body is covered with whorls of 

 tuhercles, each emitting three or four hairs. The head bears 

 two bristly spines. When full fed, the body becomes throughout 

 of a rich velvety hlack, witli whorls of branched spines of a 

 yellow colour, whilst the two on the head are black. ... In 

 length the larvae attains to nearly three inches, and is of a full 

 and plump form. It is extremely handsome in appearance, but 

 of very offensive habits." 2 Then, again, the pupa, with its 

 abdominal segments armed with stout pointed tubercles, in addi- 

 tion to its colour, which is purple-brown blotched with black on 

 the wing-cases, must also be of advantage in aiding the species 

 in the struggle for existence. 



In addition to the preceding forms we have other examples — 

 one from this State and one from Thursday Island, for instance — 

 which are so distinct that a tyro could scarcely be blamed for 

 regarding them as separate. In the first place they are much 

 smaller ; the one from New South Wales has an expanse of rather 

 more than three inches, and the other of only two and three- 

 quarters. In size and colour of the wings on their upper side, 

 save for the splash of orange-red on the forewings, they more 

 nearly conform to Danaus (Salatura) affinis, Fab., a species 

 ranging from Clarence River, N. S. Wales, to Cape York and 

 Port Darwin. The ground colour of the Danaid and Satyrid is 

 dull brown, and each has on the forewing an oblique, transverse, 

 white macular fascia, and white apical, marginal and subinar- 

 ginal spots. But it is in the lower wings that the greatest resem- 

 blance between the two species exists ; each are of the same 

 chocolate-brown and each have a large patch of white. In the 

 Danaid the latter extends right to the anal angle, but in the 

 Satyrid it scarcely reaches it. On the under side the resemblance 

 in colour and markings of H. bolina to D. affinis is less distinct, 

 but the New South Wales example of the former, owing to its 

 large median area of white, extending as it does to the anal 

 angle, together with its large marginal and submarginal white 

 markings, and its alternating white and brown cilia, is the closest 

 example of the Satyrids to the Danaid insect. 



There can be little doubt that the Australian forms of H. bolina, 

 like the Indian butterflies of that species, are affected by the 

 seasons ; that we have in fact " wet" and "dry " season forms, 

 but these seasonal changes have not yet been studied. 



- Rainbow — A Guide to the Study of Australian Butterflies, H>07, 

 pp. SO and SI, fig.4S. 



