70 SOUTII-AFEICAN BUTTEKFLIES. 



(one along costal edge, the other more transverse) ; two hind-marginal 

 spots (being the last of the row) conspicuous, black, ringed with brilliant 

 bluish- or greenish-silvery, and in a more or less complete circle of orange 

 or ochreous-yellow. 



^ Grcijisli-brovm, sJiot ivitli vivid blue from bases over discs; the 

 white-edged stria closing cell, ivith the conjluent stria beyond it, more or 

 less distinctly marked (less apparent in hind-wing) ; submarginal lunular 

 stripe and row of spots very indistinct in fore-wing, -well marked in 

 hind-wing : two black spots of hind-wing larger than in ^. Under 

 SIDE. — More conspicuously marked, especially siibmarginal lunnlar white 

 stripe, which is much broader, particularly in hind-wing, and is some- 

 times more or less confluent in parts with outer white edging of discal 

 stria. 



In a $ from D'Urban, Natal, taken by the late Mr. M. J. M'Ken, 

 the dark discal fascia and the row of whitish marks beyond it are both 

 enlarged and more continuous than usual, and this is shown with con- 

 siderable distinctness even on the upper side. In another, captured at 

 King William's Town by Colonel Bowker, the same dark marking in 

 both wings is completely confluent with the disco-cellular stria (and 

 partly so with the sub-basal one), forming one very broad dark-brownish 

 fascia, more broken in the hind-wing.^ 



Larva (European). — " Purplish-red, the narrow oblique lines and 

 the dorsal streak darker. On the flowers of Lythrum salicaria." — W. 

 F. Kirby,froi)i Be Villicrs and Gueiide, " Tab. Synopt. Lep. d'Eur." 

 1835. 



If Herrich-Schaeflfev's figure of the Variety A. actually represents the 

 Hoffmannseggii of Zeller, this form must be regarded as differing from the 

 European type-form in its smaller size, and, on the under side, in the sharp 

 definition of the mai'kings, the more macular discal stria of the hind-wing, 

 and in having the second of the hind-marginal row of white-ringed spots 

 no larger than the rest ; whereas in Telicanus it is much larger, rounded, 

 and sub-ocelliform. Herrich-Schaeffer gives the under side only, and repre- 

 sents no tail on the hind-wing ; but doubtless this appendage had been lost 

 in the specimen figured. He does not record the locality ; but while Stau- 

 dinger {Cat. Lep. Euro}}. Faimengeb., 187 1, p. 9) merely says of Hoffmann- 

 seggii, "Species est Americana" (Hopffer, loc. cit.), while expressing great 

 doubt as to the locality of Portugal originally assigned to Zeller's species, 

 states that the butterfly is an African variety of TdicaniLS, and that his 

 specimens from Nubia and the Cape are referable to it. 



The South-African specimens (as above described) all more or less approxi- 

 mate to the West- African Variety B. named Puklira by the Rev. R. P. 

 Murray ; but in none of the $ s that I have seen is there so much white 

 on the upper side as shown in his fig. 8. Mr. Murray notes the " constant 

 smaller size" of the specimens; but the measurements he gives, viz., "(^ 

 ii"'-i" i"' ', 5 i" i'"-i" 2'"," of three $ and two $ examples, are not 

 (except in the case of the smallest $ ) below the average size. 



^ An interesting specimen, exhibiting tlie conjunction of the features of both sexes in a 

 f ingle individual, was presented to me in 18S3 by Mr. W. Billinghurst, who took it near 

 Grahamstown. In this example the wings on tlie right side are of the (f coloration on the 

 upper side, wliilc those on the left side are of the ? coloration and pattern. 



