NYMPHALID.E. — NYMPHALIN.E. — XEPTIS. 



IL— NEPTIS FISSIZONATA. Figs. 3, 4. 



Ncptis Fissizonata, Butler, " Annals and Magazine of Natural Histoiy," 

 ser. 5, vol. 10, p. 43 (July, 1882). 



Neptis Fisias, Godman and Salvin, " Annals and Magazine of Natural 

 History," ser. 0, vol. 1, p. 98 (January, 1888). 



Exp. 2^ inches. 



Upperside black with white or greenish-white spots ; anterior wings with a 

 short streak in the cell, followed by two irregularly-shaped spots, a transverse 

 row of four long spots, and a subuiarginal row of smaller spots. Posterior 

 wings with a central series of five spots (sometimes a sixth between the second 

 and third from the costa), and a submarginal row of spots, the latter generally 

 preceded and followed hx narrow indistinct stripes paler than the ground- 

 colour. 



Underside similar, but paler, and with the outer line (obsolete on the 

 upperside) between the submarginal spots and the hind margin, developed into 

 narrow white lines between the nervures on all the wings, which is only rarely 

 and imperfectly the case on the upperside. On the hind wings there is a short 

 stri})e at the base of the costa, and a pale stripe running from the inner margin 

 across the base of the cell, and less distinctly continued as an evanescent 

 stripe between the subcostal nervules. 



Body black, paler beneath ; orbits, palpi beneath, and front legs, white ; 

 antennae with the club beneath and at the tip rufous. 



Hab. Solomon Islands, Guadalcanar, Florida, Aola, Savo, Alua, St. George's 

 Island, New^ Georgia, New Britain. 



In the Collections of the British Museum, H. Grose Smith, and others. 



Allied to N. Heliodora, Cramer. 



The specimen fij^ured is from Guadalcanar. N. Pisias, G. and S., is a slightly differing form 

 of this species found in the Solomon Islands (Fauro, Alu and Treasury I.), in which the sub- 

 marginal rows of spots on each wing are more or less obsolete, but on comparison with a long 

 series, both in the British Museum (in which Collection that of Messrs. Godman and Salvin is 

 now iucorfjorated), and also with along series in Mr. Grose Smith's Collection, we do not consider 

 the two forms are sufficiently distinct to warrant their separation into two distinct species ; in 

 short, we find it impossible to separate them, the degrej of obsolescence of the spots in the 

 specimens from the various Islands before mentioned being very inconstant and much intermixed, 

 both forms being found in the same Islands. In some of the specimens there is a spot a little 

 bevond the middle of the inner margin of the anterior wings, which is likewise inconstant, 

 though more frequently present in the Pisias form than in that of Fissizoiiata. 



