Crilixvili= 
and Melanitis. The author remarks that some countries 
with wet climate do not yield any but wet-season forms,* 
and conversely that some very dry countries produce only 
dry-season ones, instancing the case of Junonia almana, the 
dry-season form of which alone occurs in Scinde, while its 
wet-season form (asterie) only is met with in Ceylon and 
Singapore. He is of opinion that De Nicéville’s view is 
strengthened by the fact that the dry-season forms are more 
or less leaf-like both in shape and in the underside colouring, 
while no such resemblance is manifested by the wet-season 
ones, and argues that this points to the greater exposure to 
danger in the dry season ; but he is inclined to think that the 
eye-like underside markings in the wet season may serve as a 
protection from the attacks of birds. It is singular that, 
while this observant collector enumerates no fewer than 
twenty-three species of Pierine in his “ List,’ he does not 
seem to have noticed the occurrence of seasonal dimorphism 
in the subfamily which is especially fertile in illustrations 
of it. 
In view of the satisfactory evidence afforded by De Nicé- 
ville’s experiments with Indian Satyrine, I could no longer 
doubt that many hitherto puzzling cases of variation among 
African butterflies would find their solution in the same way, 
especially as the dated specimens accessible all pointed to the 
seasonal character of the varieties. I kept the question con- 
stantly before my entomological correspondents in Natal and 
the other warmer parts of South Africa, and was enabled by 
their assistance to indicate, in 1889,+ various extremely 
probable instances of a corresponding phenomenon among 
African Satyrine and Pierine. Among a most interesting 
collection made by Mr. A.W. Eriksson in tropical 8.-W. Africa, 
* Mr. de Nicéville has recorded (Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, lxiv, pt. ii, 
p. 362, 1895) that in N.E. Sumatra rain falls in every month of the year, 
and it is rare for a week to pass without a shower, and that consequently 
there are no dry-season forms of butterflies to be found there, with the 
solitary exception of the dry-season form of Melanitis leda, which (as in 
Java) prevails all the year round as commonly as the wet-season form. 
+ ‘South-African Butterflies,” I1I, pp. 6, 7, 125,and 395 (1889). 
