1877.. 51 



DESCRIPTIONS OF FOUR NEW SPECIES OF ACBJEA FROM LAKE 



NYASSA. 



BY W. C. IIEWITSON, F.L.S. 



I have again received several liuiulrcd butterflies from Late 

 Nyassa, and anticipating, as was natural, from sucli an entirely unex- 

 plored district, many new and remarkable species, have been again 

 grieviously disappointed. The season, which may be partly to blame, 

 has been, even in Africa, as we leani from Mr. Mouteiro, at Delagoa 

 Bay, exceptional. Messrs. Thelwall and Simons, from whom I have 

 received the collections, describe the district of Livingstonia as very 

 dry. The four species of Acrcea which I have described are, with the 

 exception of two or three species of Safi/r idee, and. as many of Hesperiidce, 

 the only new things. There are no Charaxes or Homaleosoma, with 

 the exception of H. Neophron, the only species which we have yet seen 

 from East Africa. The two most remarkable, Acrcea Derhela and A. 

 Ventura, are unique, from the collection of Mr. Simons ; the others are 

 from both collections, A. Caldarena in abundance, A. Asema rare. 



ACR.TDA DeEBELA. 



Upper-side dark brown. Anterior wing with the costal margin, from its base 

 to the middle, the median nervure, and its first branch and the inner margin, rufous. 

 Posterior wing with the base, which is marked by a large trifid spot and a sub- 

 marginal series of sagittate spots, rufous. 



Under-side as above, except that the anterior wing has the apex broadly rufous, 

 and that the sagittate spots reach to the outer margin. 



Exp. 2j% inch. 

 Completely unlike anything we know. 



AcEiEA Ventuea. 



Upper-side rufous-orange, with the outer margins broadly dark brown, marked 

 by a series of rufous-yellow spots, chiefly triangular. Anterior-wing with a large, 

 rufous-yellow, sub-apical spot, bordered with dark brown, the brown border broken 

 on its inner margin. 



Under-side : anterior wing rufous-orange, a spot at the end of the cell, and the 

 nervures near the outer margin dark brown. Posterior wing yellow, a rufous spot 

 and three black spots near the base, a band of tliree rufous spots bordered above and 

 below with black spots before the middle ; a sub-marginal series of pyramidal spots, 

 broadly bordered above, except between the discocellular nervules, by rufous spots 

 intersected by spots of yellow. 



Exp. 1 j9y inch. 



Much like A. screna on the upper-side. Unlike anytliing else 

 on the under-side. 



