152 • THE entomologist's llECORD. 



The Coloration Problem. 



By W. PARKINSON CURTIS, F.E.S. 

 {Concluded from p. 129.) 

 Lieut. -Col. Manders argues, p. 449, that it is scarcely reasonable 

 that the same agent should throw one insect back to type and another 

 to the form toward which it is tending, and then goes on to say that 

 we shall be confronted with the same difficulty {i.e., appearance of a 

 form not currently believed to be ancestral) in Hi/poliinnas, yet, as I 

 will show, his own arguments are certainly vitiated by the very same 

 thing, an attempt to explain two diverse results by the same set of 

 causes. I think he will find that LI. nnsip/nifi ab. /»«*/« isa Mendelian 

 recessive, a consideration of the brood bred by Kev. K. St. Aubyn 

 Rogers shows that this form is a recessive (1912, Proc. Ent. Soc. 

 Lond., p. vii.). Then again he assumes that the brown female H. bolina 

 is the oldest form. I was always led to believe that the oldest forms of 

 the female of both H. )iiisippns and H. bolina were those most like the 

 male, and this belief receives the strengthening help of the fact that 

 the males of the other Hypolimnafi and Kuralia, particularly H. dexithea 

 from Madagascar, the males and females of which are alike, as well as 

 some of the genera allied to Hi/pdlijiniax, many of them display much 

 the same markings and coloration as the male of //. inisippas. If the 

 older form of female be the female like the male, as seems entirely 

 probable, Lieut.- Col. Manders' attempted temperature-moisture ex- 

 planation is met with this difficulty, both J I. bolina and II. niidppuft 

 occur abundantly in Ceylon, both are closely allied, yet the same 

 temperature and moisture has driven //. luisippiis female into Danaine 

 coloration and H. bolina female into Euploeine coloration. The 

 germplasm of two species so very closely allied is yet so very different 

 that the same external causes have decked one female in many different 

 garbs of Euploeine dull brown and the other female in the gaudy 

 orange yellows of the Danaine. To travel over a continent to the 

 German Cameroons we have a precisely analogous case, the )ni)iia 

 group almost as closely allied to H. misippus and H. bolina, under 

 precisely similar conditions to those of H. niisippiis, are driven by 

 those conditions into association with the black and white Amauris, 

 whilst the same conditions produce the female H. i/iisip])i(s forms 

 diocippus, inaria and alcippoiden. I have now before me 

 Amauris ef/ialea, A. Iiecate, A. niavins, A. Jiecatoides, L. chrijsippns,'' 

 L. dorippiis, L. alcippits, H. diocippus, H. inaria, tl. alcippoides, 

 H. anthedon, H. dubia, H. dinarclia, and a form of H. diibia 

 bearing a close resemblance to H. inima, all from Bipindi, German 

 Kameruns. All, if Lieut, Col. Manders be right, the diverse results of 

 the same climatic causes, a truly wonderful result. Personally I cannot 



*NoTE. — Professor Poulton expresses surprise at the occurrence of Limnas 

 clwi/sippus var. doripjms in the German Cameroons, and calls my attention to the 

 fact that Limnas chrysippus type is rare there. I can only say that my specimen 

 was sent to me tof^ether with some 30 or 40 specimens of various species of 

 Danainae and Ni/mplialinae all bearing the locality label, and this is the one speci- 

 men in respect of which the locality would give rise to comment. The specimens 

 were obtained from a collector whose reliability and care is I believe unquestion- 

 able. At any rate I have never found him in error myself. He represented to me 

 that they were a recent batch from that locality, and they bore every evidence of 

 answering that description. The specimens were very fresh and in fine order. 



