1 62 SOUTH- AFRIC AX BUTTERFLIES. 



1847) mentioned ^^ Iclmais Vesta, Boisd,, iued.," as having been figured 

 in Doubleday and Westwood's " Genera" (pi, 7, f. 5) as tlie $ of Chry- 

 sonomc, King (Si/rnh. Phys., t. vii. if. 9-1 l). I accordingly described 

 (^Rhoj). A/r. Aust., i. p. 62, n. 41, 1862) the British Museum specimens 

 (from Congo), from which the " Genera "' figure was taken, as probably 

 Vesta, Boisd. Mr. W. F. Kirby, in 1869, pointed out to me that 

 Doubleday 's butterfly was quite distinct both from Clirysonome, Klug, 

 and also from the Abyssinian Vesta, E-eiche {op. cit., supra), and in his 

 Synonymic Catalogue (1871) he gave the species the name of Idmais 

 Hewitsoni. I subsequently found, however, that Hopffer had previously 

 {Peters' Beisc n. Mossamhique, pp. 362—363, 1862) done the same, but 

 had named Doubleday's species /. Douhledayi. 



Vesta, Keiche, described from Abyssinian specimens, is unquestion- 

 ably identical with the South-African examples here described. It 

 may at once be distinguished from the Congo ally {Douhledayi, Hopffer) 

 by its conspicuous black central band across the upper side of the hind- 

 wings, but the other black markings are very similar, Douhledayi hold- 

 ing an intermediate position between Vesta and the much smaller and 

 duller Clirysonome, Klug, with dusky almost unmarked upper side of 

 hind-wings, from Dongola.^ 



I find that the basal white of the upper side (in conjunction with 

 a yellower general ground-colour) is usually more developed in ^ speci- 

 mens from tracts within or near the Southern Tropic than in those 

 inhabiting Natal ; the palest $ s also (some nearly white) come from 

 the same tracts. 



The Variety A. is linked to the type-form by ^ s and a % from the 

 Tugela Eiver and Delagoa Bay, in which the under-side colouration is 

 dull and suffused, and the crossing bands grey, but the reddish tint not 

 decided. Colonel Bowker, on 30th July 1878, took at the mouth of 

 the Tugela a very pronounced ^ of the variety in company with the % 

 of the intermediate form. This dull creamy-reddish suffusion of the 

 under side appears to be a tendency widely prevalent throughout the 

 greater part of the genus Teracolus. 



I only once fc4I in with this species during my stay in Natal, on the 12th 

 March 1867, at a spot of limited extent in the rough thorny country called 

 the " Dooms," near Greytown, where I took several specimens about flowers at 

 a steep bank by the roadside. It Avas very conspicuous on the wing, and but for 

 the roughness of the rocky ground would have been easy to capture, not flying 

 at all swiftly At the end of March 1880, Colonel Bowker took several exam- 

 ples near the junction of the Mooi and Tugela Rivers, and, on 2d April, the 

 sexes in copula. All these examples were of the type-form, and the ^ and $ 

 taken paired were both noticeable for the heaviness of their black markings on 

 the upper side. IMr. John L. Fry brought me specimens taken in the interior 

 at the Makloutse River on the 20th April, and at Tati on the 20th May 1887. 



^ Mr. Butler records this species as also inhabiting Somaliland. See Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 Lond., 1885, p. 768. 



