MR. TRIMEN ON MIMETIC ANALOGIES AMONG AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 507 



riokles is rather local than scarce, ouly occurring in woods at a considerable elevation ; 

 and, from. Mr. Bowker's observations in Kaffraria, the ? would seem to be little, if at 

 all, rarer than the ^ , though, in the only Natalian habitat in which I found the species 

 tolerably common, the females were very much scarcer than individuals of the opposite 

 sex. As regards the ? P. Ilerope *, however, I have no doubt of its comparative 

 i-arity, as one may take males abundantly in the forests for days together, without once 

 meeting with a female. 



The resemblance to Echeria presented by the austral variety of Fapilio Leonidas 

 (P. Brasklas, Felder, Spec. Lep. p. 19, no. S-IQ), appears in the cabinet but a slight one 

 in comparison with the striking imitations just mentioned ; but it is a fair-enough like- 

 ness in nature, especially when the insect settles t- Certain specimens (usually, but not 

 invariably, females), which have the spots of the fore wings reduced in number and 

 diminished in size, are much more like Echeria than others ; and, looking at the insect 

 in comparison with the type Leonidas of Western Africa (which resembles no known 

 Banais), I have no doubt that the southern form has been, and is probably still being 

 gradually modified in the direction of the dominant southern Daiiais. 



Danais Echeria presents two varieties as regards the colour of the pale spots in the 

 fore wings — one (the type) in which those spots are ochre-yellow (fig. 3), and the other 

 in which they are white (fig. 7). The former is the prevalent form in the Cape Colony, 

 and the latter in Natal ; but I have taken both forms in each Colony, as well as inter- 

 mediate examples in which the spots near the costal margin of the fore wings are white 

 or whitish, whUe the rest are yellow. The Cenea-ioxvci of the ? Fapilio Merope mimics 

 both these varieties, and offers corresponding intermediate specimens ; while the ? P. 

 echerioides, which only inhabits the eastern portion of South Africa, almost always 

 resembles the white-spotted variety, though I have seen, too, unusually small specimens 

 which copy the yellow-spotted Echeria. 



With reference to Papilio Merope, I think it well in this place to ofl'er some observa- 

 tions on what I believe to be a remarkable instance of polymorphism in the ? of this 

 species. Pirst figured by Cramer (in 1779 and again in 1782), P. Merope has long been 

 known as a native of AVestern Africa, and more recently as also inhabiting Southern 

 Africa and Madagascar %. Its coloration is very conspicuous, and unlike that of any 

 other Fapilio, the upper surface being uniformly pale sulphur, or creamy -yeUow, the 

 fore wings with a narrow costal afid broad hind-marginal black border, and the hind 

 wings (which are tailed) having a more or less broken black band across the disk, and 

 some black hind-marginal lunules. The Felders, in their 'Species Lepidopterorum ' 

 (ISG-ii), have separated the single species generally recognized into three, viz. (in addi- 

 tion to the type Merope) P. sul2ihureus of Palisot de Beauvois (figured by that autlior 



* The various forms of the 2 Ma-ope will be discussed further on. 



t P. Leonidas has the habit (rare in a I'upUio) of scttUng not uiifreciucntly on the i)rojccting twig of some tree, 

 and there remaining motionless, with the wings closed and hanging downward, precisely after the manner of Danmx 

 Echeria, for which species, in this position, I have, on more than one occasion, mistaken it. 



+ Mr. Horace Waller has shown me a specimen taken at Mount Morambala, on the River Shird, a northern 

 tributary of the Zambesi. 



4 A 2 



