LYC.ENlD.i:. 145 



apex broadly bordered, but liind-margin only lineally edged with black ; 

 iuner-marginal border broadly blackisli as far as submedian nervure ; 

 longitudinal fold between, median and submedian nervures marked with 

 a broad silky black ray ; anal-angular lobe marked with a dull-crimson 

 spot speckled with a few bluish scales ; tail black, with a white tip and 

 a white central streak, more or less stained with orange at base. Cilia 

 greyish, in hind-wing mixed with whitish. Under side. — Soft, broivnish 

 grey ; costa and hind-margin of fore-wing and hind and inner margins 

 of hind-wing edged with ochre-yellow. Fore-wing : paler about inner- 

 marginal area. Hind-wing : dull-crimson spot on anal-angular lobe 

 conspicuous, and accompanied by two similar smaller (sometimes con- 

 tiguous) spots between it and second median nervule ; before these 

 spots, between the same nervule and inner margin, two short, irregular, 

 subangulated transverse blackish lines, interiorly edged with white, of 

 which the outer line is often and the iuner occasionally indistinct ; tail 

 black, with a yellowish median streak in its basal half 



$ Fuscous or fuscous-hroivn ; blue very variable in brigldness and 

 extent, and in some examples wholly ■wanting ; wkcn iircscnt, always paler 

 and duller than in $. Hind-wing : blue at its greatest development 

 occupying a smaller area than in ^, so that all the margins are more 

 broadly fuscous. 



In both sexes the to]) and front of head are dark-red mixed with 

 black, and marked with the following white spots, viz., two on fore- 

 head, one at base of each antenna, and one on vertex ; eyes edged 

 with white ; palpi black mixed with red, their middle joint externally 

 white. Breast white and ferruginous mixed ; legs ferruginous mixed 

 with black, the femora with white hairs, the tibias and tarsi conspi- 

 cuously barred with white. 



From M. ficcdula this species is readily known by its want on the 

 upper side of the apical hind-marginal ferruginous, and by presenting 

 a brownish-grey instead of a ferruginous-brown under side ; it has, too, 

 the tails of the hind-wing considerably narrower and shorter. The 

 two latter characters also separate it from M. Silcnus, Fab., of Western 

 Africa, to which on the upper side some of the duller ^ s of M. dermap- 

 tera bear considerable resemblance. There is in these ^ s a complete 

 gradation from individuals with the field of blue in the fore-wing quite, 

 and in the hind-wing almost as much developed as in the $, to those in 

 which even the few sprinkled scales of blue found in others are totally 

 absent. 



Pupa. — Resembling that of M. ficcdula. Dull-brown, paler along 

 middle of back. Under side, including head and wing covers, dark 

 olivaceous-brown. — Described from a drawing by Mr. (now Captain) 

 H. C. Harford, who wrote in 1869 that he had found the larvtB on a 

 fig-ti'ee near D' Urban. 



This curious Mi/n'na seems to be extremely local, and but few specimens 

 are seen in collections. During my stay in Natal I saw only one example, a 



