234 SOUTH-AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 



hair, hiding basal part of tarsi ; tarsi scaly, and with a few short 

 bristles, stout, spiuose beneath : fore-legs in both sexes like the rest, except 

 in being slightly smaller and perhaps even more hairy. 



Abdomen of moderate length, arched dorsally, much compressed 

 laterally. 



As long ago as 1847, Boisduval (Appendix to Delegorgue's 

 Voyage clans VAfrique Australe, p. 588) observed that his Lyeama 

 Delegorguei would doubtless constitute a new genus, and mentioned the 

 characteristic features of its legs, antennae, and palpi, but did not give it 

 any generic name. HopfFer referred the butterfly to the genus Lueia 

 of Swainson, and I, with the expression of much doubt and uncertainty, 

 provisionally followed him in 1866. I find that i)e%o?'^Mei (identified 

 by Mr. A. Gr. Butler with Bibuhis, Fab.) has no agreement with Swain- 

 son's type, the Australian Lucia Umbaria, but is less remote from the 

 Cingalese Lucia Epius, Westw., the type of Moore's genus Spalgis (Proc. 

 Zool. Soe. Lond., 1879, p. 137; and Lep). Ceylon, i. p. 70, 1881). 

 From the latter, however, it is well distinguished by the densely hairy 

 palpi, extraordinarily hairy tibise, the first subcostal nervule rising from 

 the extremity of the discoidal cell of the hind-wings, and particularly 

 by the completely articulated and two-clawed fore-tarsi of the male. 

 This last character is, as far as I can learn, shown only in two other 

 genera of the family, viz., Arrugia and Deloiicura, and constitutes a 

 distinction of great importance. Superficially, Lachnocnema bears con- 

 siderable resemblance to the very hirsute Mediterranean and West 

 Asian genus Thestor, Hlibn. (especially to T. Maiiritanicus, Lucas), but 

 the latter genus is most remarkably distinguished by its extremely 

 short and very massively spurred fore and middle tibiae, while the fore- 

 tarsi of the $ are of the ordinary unarticulated type with a single 

 curved terminal claw. 



I have separated from L. Bibidus, Fab., under the name of L. 

 V Urhani, the smaller and duller form alluded to at p. 281 of my 

 earlier book, as I found that it was of constantly slenderer structure, 

 and had a different station. I have received from the Limpopo Eiver 

 a very large $ Lachnocnema, which I believe represents a third species ; 

 it is very pale beneath, and has barely a trace of the characteristic 

 steely dots. 



In this genus the ^^ is of a plain uniform brown above, but the $ 

 Bibul'us has a more or less developed whitish or white disc in both 

 wings, and the $ UUrbani a discal suffusion of pale grey. On the 

 under side the reddish-brown and brownish macular transverse bands, 

 and the hind-margins are ornamented with glittering steely points or 

 dots. L. Bibidus has a wide distribution over South-Eastern Africa, and 

 L. lyjJrbani almost as large a one, but the former only is recorded as 

 a native of Mozambique, while the latter is not known from any place 

 north-east of Natal. 



