CURRENT NOTES. 303 



are, according to the prospectus, to be illustrated by the transference 

 " from the wings of real moths and butterflies to a prepared plate 

 paper," but nothing is said of the thorax, abdomen, head (and their 

 various appendages), which we had always supposed were at least of 

 as great importance scientifically as the wings. Nor do we learn the 

 character of the proposed letterpress, which appears to us to be all- 

 important. 



At the meeting of the Entomological Society of London, held on 

 October 7th, Sir George Hampson exhibited a collection of Norwegian 

 butterflies made by him on the Dovrefield, on the Alten fiord, at 

 Bossekop, and other localities this year, and remarked how greatly 

 the dates of emergence appeared to dift'er from those experienced by 

 Staudinger and other collectors. The specimens included fine series 

 of ('alias lurla, Lef., Chrijsophanm hippothoe var. stieberi, Gerh., lEneis 

 noma, Thnb., Mditaea var. norvegica, Auriv., the Norwegian form of 

 M. aiirelia, Aigyunis freija, and A. friijya, a Labrador, arctic and 

 North American species, now found further south at Kongsvold for 

 the first time. 



At the same meeting, Mr. A. H. Jones exhibited examples of Erebia 

 christi, taken this summer in the Laquinthal, and of the several Erebiid 

 species to which it is allied ; Sati/nts actaea var. cordida, captured last 

 July at Sierre, having four equal-sized pupilled eyes on the forewings, 

 probably a local form peculiar to this warm locality; and a short series of 

 Chri/sophaniia florilis (type) and C. var. subalpina from the Laquinthal, 

 with C. hippothoe var. I'ltnjbia, showing the strong resemblance on the 

 upper surface, which the ? of this latter species bears to the ? 

 .siibal])ina. 



At the same meeting, Dr. D. Sharp exhibited specimens illustrative 

 of egg-cases and life-histories of eight species of South African 

 ('assididae. The larvse displayed, with one exception, the peculiarity 

 of retaining the cast larval skins as accumulations on the long anal 

 processes with which the larvie are provided. The exception is the 

 larva of Baaijita stolida. Li this species the anal tails are more robust 

 and better developed than usual, but they do not carry the exuvise, and 

 are probably used for some other purpose. The egg-cases showed a 

 very interesting series of degrees of perfection, some of them consisting 

 merely of a few membranes enclosmg two or three eggs and covered 

 with a patch of excrement, while, in the case oiAspiduinorpha pioicticosta, 

 the ootheca is among the most remarkable and perfect structures 

 produced by any animals. Mr. W. L. Distant also showed the pupa- 

 cases of some African species of Aspidomorpha, South, with the cast 

 heads of the larv*. 



At the same meeting, Mr. Eoland Trimeu exhibited some cases of 

 mimicry between butterflies inhabiting the Kavirondo-Nandi district 

 of the Uganda British Protectorate, particularly that in which Planema 

 po'igei, Dewitz, is imitated by an apparent variety of Pscitdacraea 

 Aioioirii, Dewitz, and also by a hitherto undescribed form of the 

 polymorphic 5 Pajnlio merope, Cram. This makes the fourth pro- 

 nounced known form of the 5 Papilio ineropc. The usual and 

 generally distributed form of this sex throughout Tropical Africa is 

 that named hippocoon, by Fabricius — an excellent mimic of Amanris 

 niavins, L. ; all the other forms appear to be very rare, and two of them — 

 diuni/sos, Doubl., and the form from Zanzibar described in Mr. Trimen's 

 Presidential Address to the Society on January 19th, 1898 — are not 



