258 SOUTII-AFEICAX BUTTERFLIES. 



extremity of the cell ; (7) the small whitish spot in the upper part of 

 the cell, near its extremity, sometimes found in Cynorta, is wanting ; 1 

 in the Mnd-ving, (8) the basal ochreous is darker and more rufous in 

 tint, extending farther costally ; (9) the band is considerably narrower, 

 its inner edge not so even, the brownish clouding of its outer border 

 better defined ; (10) the inter-nervular rays are not so strongly marked ; 

 (11) the discal whitish spot is not found in Cynorta. It is also to be 

 noted that Echerioides is considerably the larger of the two species. 



The $ s of these two very similar ^ s are surprisingly different, for 

 while that sex in P. Echerioides (as mentioned above) so closely 

 mimics Amauris Eeheria as to be in life indistinguishable from the 

 ^ P. Ccnca, the ^ of Cynorta (described by Westwood under the name 

 of Boisduvcdliamis ") closely copies the very differently marked Planema 

 Gea, (Fab.) $, — a well-known native of Western Africa. The feature 

 common to these two $ s — by which the collector can at once distin- 

 guish Eelicrioidcs from Cenca — is the ochre-yellow black-spotted basal 

 patch on the under side of the hind-wings. This character is in the 

 ^ s of Cynortet and Echerioides even more developed than in the $ s, and 

 is in direct mimicry of the Planema ; and its continued existence in 

 the $ Echerioides — wdiich mimics a Danaine butterfly not possessing 

 this peculiar marking — points to the inference that mimicry of the 

 Plencma group was in both these Papilioiies the earlier tendency, and 

 has only more recently been diverted in the direction of Amauris in 

 the case of the Southern species. 



Archdeacon Ivitton, of King William's Town, first brought this interesting 

 Papilio to my notice, having in April 1863 forwarded a $ example captured 

 by him in the Perie Bush.^ Colonel Bowker in 1865 found the butterfly 

 numerously in the Sogana and Boolo Forests, near the Tsomo River in 

 Ivaffaria, and sent me a number of specimens of both sexes, including two 

 pairs taken in copula. He noted that there were two broods in the year, one 

 in November, not lasting for more than about four weeks, and the other in 

 January, continuing to appear until far into March. " The ^ s," he wrote, 

 " take a constant course through the forest, returning regularly by the same 

 route ; while tlie $ s keep about the place, but fly at a lower elevation, and 

 do not appear to take the rounds of the $ s. The sexes disappeared together 

 at the end of November, and did not appear again until early in January, 

 when they both came out on the same day. When the $ and 5 meet, they 

 whirl about together among the tops of plants m the forest, and as soon as 

 united, disappear down under the leaves." 



I only once chanced upon living Echerioides, on the 8th March 1867, in 

 highdying woods at Tunjumbili, on the Tugela border of Natal. The $ s 

 were tolerably numerous, but I saw only two $ s, and at first mistook one of 

 them for P. Cenca. The flight of the insects quite confirmed Colonel Bowker's 



1 A single example from Natal has a very faint trace of this spot in each fore-wing. 



2 Strong evidence of the species-identity of Cynorta and Boisdiivalliamis was adduced 

 in 1878 by the late Mr. D. G. Rutlierford, who exhibited at the June meeting of the Ento- 

 mological Society of London a specimen showing on the left side the wing-markings of 

 Cynorta, and on the right side those of BoisduraUkmus. 



2 This specimen reached me in a very damaged state ; and I erroneously referred it 

 to P. Messalina, Stoll, and so recorded it in Bhopaloccra Africce AustraHs, ii. p. 329. 



