( xxxiii ) 



in the female, into a pale reddish-brown in the male, — forming 

 in each case a startling contrast with the nearly black basal 

 half of both wings against which it terminates abruptly. 

 Intermediate forms are probably much commoner than in 

 P. sesamus. In one dry male out of four in the Hope Depart- 

 ment, the chief blue band is in large part replaced by an 

 intrusion of dull red. The extraordinary differences in shape 

 are the same as those between the two forms of P. antilope 

 (compare Fig. 3 on Plate XII of Tx-ans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1902, 

 with Figs. 3a and 3b), and much greater than those between 

 the forms of P. sesamus (compare Fig. 1 with la or 2 with 2a 

 on the same plate). In the dry phases of actia and antilope 

 the hooked tip of the fore-wing is even more lecurved than 

 in that of sesamus, while the prolongation of the anal angle 

 of the hind-wing which is so marked a character in the two 

 former is wanting in the latter species. These characteristic 

 features in the contour of the wings in the dry antilojje and 

 actia are related to the beautiful and detailed resemblance of 

 their under-sides to dead leaves, while the greenish-black under- 

 side of the dry sesaiims is well concealed by a general harmony 

 with the dark shady environment which it seeks for pro- 

 longed rest, rather than by any detailed special protective 

 resemblance. Hence the necessity for a profound modification 

 of shape is far less imperative in this latter. It has been 

 pointed out that the upper-side differences between the two 

 phases of actia are greater than in antilope. As regai-ds 

 their under-sides the reverse is the case, because this surface 

 is so much less conspicuous in the wet phase of the former 

 when compared with that of the latter species. It is, however, 

 very far from being cryptic, attaining nearly the same degree 

 of conspicuousness as Precis trimeni which Mr. Marshall 

 considers to be another of the wet forms of antilope (I. c. pp. 

 419, 420). The representation of a dead leaf by the under- 

 side of the dry actia is slightly more elaborate than in antilope. 

 Both species have an equally beavitiful mid-rib-like stripe, but 

 the former alone possesses the representation of two holes, the 

 posterior minute, near the tip of the simulated leaf — due to 

 white semi-transparent spots. Equally elaborate detail is seen 

 in P. cuama, of which P. trimeni is the wet form. In Mr. 



PIIOC. ENT. soc. LOND., IV. 1903. D 



