OLOPHEUM AS SIMILE, PK. 



255 



observing laid an egg on my coat or trousers, evidently liking the 

 warmth of the sun-warmed flannel. In fact, she seemed willing to 

 ovipos^it on anything within a few feet of the larval pabulum. I 

 removed what ova I could collect and some pansies to a small cage 

 out-of-doors, in the hope of being able to observe the habits of the 

 lesulting larvae. But in this I was unsuccessful, as some Carabid 

 beetles got in and must have devoured most of the young larvae before 

 long. Anyhow, I was only able to find one, and that almost half- 

 grown, on September 7th, hiding at the root of a plant of cultivated 

 pansy. This, however, in view of the unusually cold last half of 

 August and early September, may prove of interest. 



Attempted pairing of similar-looking species. — In view of it having 

 been suggested that butterflies, owing to their limited vision, can only 

 see masses of colour, the folloAving may prove of interest. On June 17th, 

 this year, as a freshly-emerged $ of Heraclides creaphontes was ex- 

 panding her wings on a small tree in my butterfly-house, a S Papilio 

 macltaon flew up and attempted to copulate with her. In fact, he so 

 far succeeded that the two remained seemingly joined for quite a 

 minute, after which he flew ofl'. On the same afternoon I saw a 3 

 Laertias philcnor make a desperate attempt to pair with a J Etiphoeades 

 troiliis, only giving up after a courtship of several minutes. Now these 

 butterflies are widely separate among the Papilionids, yet, in both cases, 

 the pattern of the females' wings bore a strong resemblance to that of 

 the proper female of the male who sought to pair. Indeed, I have 

 never noticed an attempted pairing between diflerent species of butter- 

 fly, unless of extremely close relationship, such as Pa]>iUo madiaon and 

 Papilio astenas, unless the colour and wing-pattern resembled closely 

 those of the species of the male. Though I have often had male F. 

 iiiaclioon and female Jasoniades (jlanciis out together, I have never seen 

 the niarltaon attempt to pair with the (/lancni^ {titniHs), which, though 

 it is more closely allied to P. inachaon than is Heraclides cres- 

 jilioiites in many ways, and is of the same colour, has a striped 

 pattern, instead of one resembling that of macliaon. Of course, this 

 may only be an accident. 



Olophrum assimile, Pk., an Addition to the British List. 



By Prof. T. HUDSON BEARE, F.E.S., and H. St. J. K. DONISTHORPE, F.E.S. 

 We have pleasure in announcing the capture of a considerable 

 number of specimens of Olophrum ansiiirile, Pk., which is new to our 

 list, in flood-refuse on the banks of the river Spey, near Nethy Bridge, 

 during the second and third weeks of September last. This species was 

 described by PaykuU in " Fauna Suecica," iii., p. 409, and the following 

 is a rough translation of the description given in Gangibauer ("Die 

 Kafer von Mitteleuropa," vol. ii., p. 720) : — Colour, testaceous-brown, 

 the underside of the bod}' and the abdomen being a darker brown, 

 somewhat shiny ; head somewhat strongly and thickly punctured, 

 terminal joint of the antenntB finely pointed ; the thorax about half as 

 broad again as long, rounded at the sides, with bluntly rounded basal 

 angles, somewhat deeply and thickly punctured on the disc, with 

 flattish side borders, which have a small pit near the middle. The 

 elytra are more than half as long again as the thorax, about as thickly 

 punctured, but the punctures are rather deeper. Length 3-|^-4mm. It 



