146 SOUTH-AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 



fine $ , which I captured in the Botanic Garden at D'Urban, on 14th Feb- 

 ruary 1867; — it was flitting about the top of a tall shrub, and settling on 

 the leaves. The late Mr. M. J. M'Ken took several specimens in the same 

 locality, but at long intervals. Colonel Bowker sent three Dermaptera taken 

 near D'Urban in August 1S73, and in the course of 1879 forwarded in all 

 nine others; but it was not until July 18S0 that he discovered a little metro- 

 polis of the species at Claremont, near D^Urban, in the shape of a large wild 

 fig-tree.^ He wiote at that time : " My attention was attracted to a fine 

 specimen sitting with closed wings on the bark of the tree. He was soon 

 boxed, and I then looked round for others. You may guess my surprise at 

 finding them in great numbers, in all degrees of development, from the little 

 twisted-up lump creeping out of the pupa skin to the fully expanded butterfly. 

 I secured abovit fifty, and an equal number must have got away. They were 

 most numerous at about a foot from the ground, and the pupa3 were collected 

 together in the hollows of the bark and suspended to a mass of web. I 

 send some of this web, which you will see is full of imperfect specimens, bits 

 of wings, ttc." Colonel liowker thought that this web was the work of the 

 congregated larvfe of the butterfly, but it appeared to me to be certainly that 

 of a s]3ider ; and he himself added that he found a spider in one part of the 

 mass. On the 30th July he further noted that the butterflies were still 

 coming out, but not so numerously, and estimated that over a thousand must 

 have appeared from the same tree between that date and the 15th of the same 

 month. 



Localities of Myrina dcrmapicva. 



I. South Africa. 



E. Natal. 



a. Coast Districts. — D^Urban. 



F. "Zululand."— Coll. Brit. Mus. 



Genus APHN^US, 



Aplmceus, Hiibn., Verz. Bek. Schmett,, p. 81 (1S16); Hewits., Illust. 



Diurn. Lep., p. 60 (1865). 

 yl7?;W//2)0(?/a [part], Westw., Gen. Diurn. Lep., ii. p. 477 (1S52); Trim., 



Rhop. Afr. Aust., ii. p. 226 (1S66). 

 Spindasis, Wallengr., Lep. Rhop. Caffr., in Iv. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Handl.,p. 45 



(1857)- 



Imago. — Head of moderate size ; eyes smooth ; ixdpi moderately 

 long, separated tliroughoiit, divergent, ascendant, densely and compactly 

 clothed with scales, — the second joint not rising quite to level of summit 

 of eyes, — terminal joint shorter than in lolaics or Hypoli/cwna, not very 

 slender ; antcnncc of moderate length, I'atlier thick (less so than in 

 lolaus), very gradually incrassated from rather before their middle. 



Thorax robust, proportionally more so than in lolaus, well clothed 

 with silky down. Forc-winr/s apically acute and subapically somewhat 

 convex in the ^, but blunter and sub-truncate in the ^ ; costa very 

 slightly arched near base, and thence almost straight ; costal nervure 



^ Mr. T. Ayres, in the list furnished by him of a collection of South-African insects, 

 mentions his having reared Dermajitcra from the pupa found near D'Urban, " at the foot of 

 a banyan fig-tree." 



