65 



A LIST OF LEPIDOPTERA COLLECTED by DR. CUTHBERT 

 CHRISTY IN NIGERIA. 



By Emily Maby Shakpe. 



The insects in this collection were all taken on the banks 

 of the Niger, or within a few miles of the river, at various points 

 between Lokoja and Ilo. Those from Lokoja were mostly cap- 

 tured on Mount Patti, which rises abruptly behind the town for 

 about a thousand feet. It is thickly wooded, except on the top, 

 which is flat, open, grass country. At a certain spot, used by 

 the Imperial forces stationed at Lokoja as a flag- station and 

 sanatorium for convalescent officers and men, are the remains of 

 what may have been a small village, and round about this spot 

 flourishes a profusion of flowers and plants, many of which seem 

 to be peculiar to the locality. Here more butterflies were to be 

 seen in an hour than could be seen in a month at any other place 

 in Nigeria that I visited. 



Lokoja is at the junction of the Benue Eiver with the Niger, 

 and is, roughly speaking, about 400 miles from the sea. Egga is 

 about eighty miles above Lokoja, and Jebba, the head-quarters 

 of the Imperial forces in Nigeria, is some 150 miles further up. 

 Most of the insects from Jebba were collected about the island on 

 which the town and Imperial camp are situated, or on Juja-rock 

 Island. The Juju-rock, such a prominent feature in the land- 

 scape at Jebba, rises from the bed of the river to a height of 

 300 ft. or more. It is practically a sheer cliff on all sides, and 

 was never explored till I succeeded, after three days' toil, in 

 finding a way to the summit in May, 1898. It was up to that 

 date the centre of much superstition and mystery, and was 

 talked of with dread by the natives for hundreds of miles both 

 up and down the river. Its summit is covered with scrub, 

 amongst which I noted several plants I had not seen elsewhere. 

 The same was the case with the butterflies, and two or three 

 species which are specially mentioned in the following list I saw 

 nowhere else. The flora and fauna of the Juju-rock at Jebba 

 are peculiar in many ways, and would, I am sure, well repay 

 anyone making them a special study. 



Bajibo, Leaba, Bussa, Yelwa, and Gomba are places on or 

 near the river bank between Jebba and Ilo, the most northerly 

 station in British territory, and nearly a thousand miles from 

 the river's mouth. At Ilo the country is very different to what 

 it is lower down the river. It is less wooded, and large stretches 

 of open country little more than desert are frequent. The people, 

 too, are very different, being a much finer race, particularly the 

 men, who wear the flowing robes and ornaments of the Arab. In 

 this district, bordering upon the Western Soudan, the butterflies 



