310 Professor E. B. Poulton on Mimetic Forms of 



the National Collection. In view of these intermediate 

 specimens, and the variation in all the distinguishing char- 

 acters observed when a sufficiently long series of jolmstoni 

 are examined I do not doubt that Auriviilius is correct 

 in suggesting that fallax is conspecific with johnstoni. 

 Strong support is also afforded to Auriviilius' suggestion 

 by the observations of Rev. K. St. Aubyn Rogers, who 

 knows both johnstoni and fallax in life in their natural 

 habitat and looks upon them as a single species. It has 

 been shown here that fallax is undoubtedly the eastern 

 form of lycoa. It therefore becomes extremely probable 

 that the whole wonderful series of forms — many of them 

 totally unlike — associated under the name johnstoni, or 

 as it was still more appropriately named by Oberthilr, 

 2'>rotcina, are all of them specifically identical with Godart's 

 species lycoa. Furthermore, this remarkable series must 

 be still further extended to include the toruna of Grose- 

 Smith. 



In conclusion, it is possible to attempt to reconstruct 

 the history of the changes through which lycoa and its 

 descendants have passed. It is probable that the male 

 of the western lycoct represents the ancestral form of the 

 whole group, — a semi-transparent fuscous and brownish 

 Acr,va with ill-defined markings. As regards the semi- 

 transparency it is noteworthy that the character tends to 

 crop up not uncommonly in the most modified form 

 johnsto7ii, where it is often seen in the discal patch of 

 the hind-wing. The female of the western lycoa became 

 modified by synaposematic approach to the black and 

 white species of the Danaine genus Amauris on the 

 west coast. The same is substantially true of the species 

 in Western Uganda where the black and white Amauris 

 are still predominant and have even drawn the echcria and 

 alhimaculata types of their own genus after them. (See 

 S. A. Neave in Trans. Ent. Soc. 1906, pp. 208-210.) As we 

 go further east however these latter types become them- 

 selves predominant, and the fallax forms of lycoa follow 

 them, the males becoming strongly mimetic and approach- 

 ing the buff-spotted Danaine models, while the females 

 still retain the ancestral colour and resemble those that 

 are white-spotted. As regards the hind-wing both sexes 

 gain a buff' discal patch similar in colour but not in shape 

 to the models. Finally, I'rom the most strongly-marked 

 of these eastern forms with the deepest shade of ground 



