252 SOUTH- AFRIC AX BUTTERFLIES. 



wings as Trophonius exhibits, and is little if at all larger than the 

 latter.^ 



As I j-tointed out in 1873 {Trans. Ent. Sue. Zond., 1874, jo. 149), 

 the circumstances under which the several forms and variations of 

 this most interesting Papilio occur in South Africa do not warrant the 

 assignment of certain variations of the $ to separate ^ forms proposed 

 by Mr. Butler {op. cit., 1869, p. 275). The ^ s, not only from the 

 same district, or from the same locality, but even from the same wood, 

 vary indefinitely as to their black markings witliin certain limits. An 

 instance of this is given by seven examples reared by Mr. Weale from 

 larvae of one season found in the same spot." I possess five examples, 

 taken by Mrs. Barber, Mr. F. Barber, jun., and myself, in the same 

 little copse at Highlands, near Grahanistown, which present great 

 variation in the discal upper-side band of the hind-wings,'^ and a notice- 

 able difference in the width of the hind-marginal band of the fore- 

 wings, as well as in the dentation of its interior edge. A very remark- 

 able specimen, taken by Mrs. Barber at the mouth of the Kleinemond 

 River, recalls, in the character of the spots which represent the hind- 

 wing bands, the ordinary West- African ^, but is also signalised by 

 a very narroio hlacJc border to the fore-v:ings, only slightly denticulated 

 on its inner edge. The other extreme form in the Southern ^ is that 

 described by Mr. Butler under the head of " (aa.) Cenca, var.," from 



^ The explanation of this discrepancy seems obvious. The Western Ilippocoon closely 

 mimics the largest of Western Danaides (Amauris Niavius), which has a small white patch 

 in hind-winj^'s ; while Trojihonius is modified in imitation of the considerably smaller iJanais 

 Chri/slppits, in which nearly the whole field of hind-wings is brick-red. In both the Western 

 and Southern Troplwnius form of ? the subapical bar of fore-wings is sometimes almost as 

 red as the other markings. This variation appears to be in imitation of the Dorippus 

 variety of Danais Chryslppus. 



Another remarkable form of the ? is that named by Doubleday {Gen. Dlurn. Lcp., pi. 3, 

 f. 4), P. Dionysos. It is peculiar to Western Africa, and, in company with the curious allied 

 variation figured by Mr. Hewitson {loc. cit., i. 39), is of high interest, not only as combining 

 the features of Hippocoon and TropJwnius, but as indicating, in its possession of merely a 

 trace of black between the white subapical bar and inner-marginal space of the fore-wings, 

 the mode in which (as suggested by me in the Transactions of the Linnean Society, loc. cit., 

 with reference to the ? Meriones of Madagascar}, the extraordinary modification of the 

 fore-wing markings of the ? s was most probably initiated. Dionysos is, in fact, of all tlie 

 West- African ? s, the least profoundly modified form as compared with tlie i . All the 

 Western ? s, like the <J s (but more so in the outer portion of the hind-wings), are distin- 

 guished from Southern examples by the strongly marked fuscous rays between the nervures. 



" The seven males present the customary amount of variation in the transverse black 

 markings of the upper side of the hind-wings, — from three sub-quadrate discal blotches to 

 a continuous irregular bar, — and in these particular markings no two of them nearly agree. 

 It is the same with the amount of black marking on the tails of the hind-wings, which 

 varies from a simple median streak, with an accompanying short suffused stripe bounding 

 the basal half of the tail interiorly, to a black space absorbing almost the whole basal two- 

 thirds of the tail. Four of the seven specimens possess, more or less faintly, the blackish 

 line defining the second disco-cellular nervule of the fore-wings. 



3 The most imperfect condition of this band that I am aware of is exhibited by a specimen 

 which I captured at Knysna, Cape Colony, in which the three patches representing the 

 band are reduced to widely-separated, irregular, attenuated spots, smaller (especially that 

 at anal angle) than in the Western race. 



