218 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History [Vol. XLIII 



I dislike to found a new species upon a'solitaiy defective specimen, 

 but, after examining every pictui'e of an Epitola whicn has been published 

 and reading carefully exevy descrij)tion which has been printed, I am 

 convinced that the little butterfly before me has never been described 

 or figured, at least not in such manner as to make either figure or de- 

 scription recognizable. The insect most nearly approaches E. mancjuensi.^ 

 Bethune-Baker (cf. Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1908, PI. viii, fig. 6). The 

 outline of the wings is the same, but the markings below differ. It is 

 odd that the only specimen of the genus Epitola brought l)ack from the 

 Congo by the expedition should turn out to be hitherto nondescript. 

 There are now nearly fift}" species of the genus known from the region of 

 which the Belgian Congo forms a part. 



Lycaeninae 

 Megalopalpus Rober 



The separation of the African species under the generic name Megalo- 

 palpus Rober from the Asiatic forms, which have been described under 

 the generic names Gerydus Boisduval and Paragerydus Distant is in the 

 opinion of the writer a rather unnecessary refinement, based upon struc- 

 tural differences which are so microscopic as hardly- to be worthy of 

 regard. We are reaching a time when the discriminating instincts of 

 authors, who carry on their labors with the help of compound micro- 

 scopes, will demand the erection of a genus for every species, not only in 

 entomology, but all the other zoological sciences. 



The so-called "species" of Megalopalpus found in tropical Africa 

 seem to the writer to be in a state of confusion at the present time. 

 Aurivillius in his 'Rhopalocera .Ethiopica,' p. 300, recognizes three species. 

 The first is M. zymna (West wood), originally figured in Doubleday and 

 Hewitson's 'Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera,' who in their plate represent 

 a rather small insect, apparently belonging to the female sex, in which the 

 posterior border of the secondaries is broadly margined with black. The 

 second species recognized by Auiivillius is M. simplex Rober, in which 

 the hind wings are more narrowly bordered with black and in which the 

 markings of the under side of the wings are as described by Aurivillius 

 in his analytical key. This species Aurivillius regards as having been 

 redescribed by Capronnier under the name bicoloraria, and also re- 

 described by Kirby and refigured by Smith and Kirby under the specific 

 name similis. The third species admitted )iy Aurivillius is M. metaleucus 

 Karsch, which, according to Professor AurivilUus, is the insect figured as 

 M. zymna by Smith and Kirby. 



