MR. TRIMEN ON MIMETIC ANALOGIES AMONG AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 517 



aud Congo. The species may at once be known from its allies by the peculiar pattern of 

 the fore wings — the inferior pale marking running almost parallel with the subapical 

 bar, and nearly to the posterior angle, instead of forming an inner-marginal space; 

 adjacent to the band crossing the hind wings. Vanopea Lucretla, Cram., ;i])p(>ars to 

 mimic this Aercea ; but the resemblance is not so accurate as that between 1\ Turqmnui 

 and A. Agmiice. Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast near Ashanti, and Calabar arc the 

 known localities inhabited by P. Lncrctia, which seems as rare as P. Tarquinia, oiu' 

 specimen in the British Museum, two in Mr. Hewitson's collection, aud two in the pos- 

 session of Mr. Swanzy being all the examples that I have seen. 



10. AcR^EA Zetes, Linn. (Tab. XLII. figs. 8, 9.) 



Aercea Zetes, Syst. Nat. ii. p. 7GG. n. 110. 



P. Menippc, Dru. Illustr. N. H. iii. pi. 13. f. 3, 1 ; Stoll, Suppl. Cr. Tap. Ex. pi. 28. f. 1. 



Var. Acraa Acara, Hewits. Exot. Butt. iii. y\. viii. f. 11., 15. 



Aercea Caffra, Felder, Reise der Novara, ii. p. 309, pi. xlvi. f. 10, 11. 



North of the Equator, the type-form of this species has an extensive range on the 

 western coast, but it does not appear to occur further to the south than Fernando Po. 

 Specimens in various collections have been received from the island in question, as well 

 as from Calabar, Ashanti, Cape Palmas, and Sierra Leone. In Southern Africa, the 

 species is represented by a well-marked variety, A. Acara, Ilewits.*, which differs, on 

 the upper surface, in having all the markings of the fore wings strongly defined (the red 

 ground-colour being wholly free from the almost universal fuscous suffusion so constant 

 in the tyjie), and in possessing a conspicuous subapical ochreous bar. Both in the type- 

 form and in the southern variety, the colouring of the female is universally very much 

 duller and fainter than that of the male. 



From Old Calabar aud Ashanti a rare and handsome Nymphalide, Panopea Boisdn- 

 valil, Doubl. (Gen. D. Lep. pi. 37. f. 3, ?), which closely imitates the type Aercea 

 Zetes, has been received. A male from the former district, in the collection of Mr. 

 Hewitson, and a female from the latter, in the British Museum, are the only West- 

 African specimens that I have seen; but these two examples respectively resemble in 

 their differences the dissimilar male and female of the Acrcva, the female exhibiting an 

 incomplete subapical whitish ray, answering to that of the ? Zetes. 



In Natal Boisduvalil reappears t, in company with, and evidently mimicking (in the 

 red and black colouring of the fore wings and their ochreous subapical bar) the Acara 

 form of A. Zetes ; and here, again, each sex of the Aercea is copied by the corresponding 

 sex of the Panopea. A singular example of the male Panojiea, taken at Port Natal by 



* Acrcf.a Caffra of Fcldcr. Mr. Hewitson notes {hc.cit.) that Aan-a is "perhaps only an extraordinary variety of 

 A. Menippe." 



t I have examined eight Natalian specimens in collections, five males and three females. ISix of these were taken 

 by llr. M'Ken, the Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens at D'Urban, who has kindly contributed specimens to the 

 South-African Museum and to my own collection, and who informed me that this beautiful insect is one of the 

 rarest of the native butterflies, but haunts the same spots as Acrcm Zetes. I saw but one iiidi\i(lu;d (a female) on the 

 wing during my stay in Natal, but did not succeed in capturing it. 



