The Bionomics of South African Insects. 497 



19 and May 1, 1898, and of the ALvna taken on March 20 

 and April 3 of the same year. 



It occurred to me that Castalius calice migfht also belongr 

 to the same group, but Mr. Marshall points out, in the 

 passage quoted below, that its habits do not support 

 this view. 



" Salishury, Jan. 8, 1S99. — I should very much doubt 

 whether Castalius calice is convergent with or even a 

 mimic of Almna nyassx. Their habits and stations are 

 very different, and moreover C. calice (of which I believe 

 C. mclmna will prove to be the summer form) is common 

 in Natal and the Transvaal, where A. nyassx does not 

 occur, I should not regard C. calice as an unpalatable 

 species, and its colouring is by no means conspicuous owing 

 to its small size : it is an active little insect resembling 

 T. 2Jlini%LS, Lyca^nesthcs, and other arboreal Lyemnidm in its 

 habits. In the intense light and shade of this climate its 

 black-and-white markings are rather protective as it rests 

 on the shiny leaves of its food-plant (Zizyphus), just as are 

 the brilhant white under-sides of some lolai. The con- 

 vergence you suggest between A. nyass/e and Neiitis agatha 

 and Nyctemera leuconoe is highly probable, but Amauris 

 and the black-and-white Acrseas are all absent from the 

 Mashona plateau, being all coast or low-veldt forms. 

 Alxna, Fcntila, and perhaps Dcloneura, are in my opinion 

 the only unpalatable South African Lycienidse, and the 

 latter is more likely to be a mimic of some day-flying 

 moth. Catochryso'ps mashuna used to be very abundant 

 here, but only occurring in September and October. I only 

 saw two or three this season and always when I had no 

 net." 



Three specimens of another interesting and probably dis- 

 tasteful species of the same Lycsenid genxxsALxna amazoula 

 captured on the same day, Sept. 26, 1897, as the conspicu- 

 ous day-flying and probably unpalatable geometrid moth 

 Pctovia dichroaria were presented by Mr. Marshall to the 

 Hope Department. Mr. Marshall had taken the group in 

 the same locality at Malvern, Natal, and, as the passage 

 from his letter quoted on p, 498 indicates, he believes that 

 the resemblance is synaposematic. In the cabinet the 

 likeness is stronger on the under than upon the upper 

 surface, but is probably strongest of all upon the wing. 



Almna amazoula is a Lycsenid of great interest, probably 

 exhibiting a generalized Mtillerian resemblance to the 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1902. — PART III. (NOV.) 33 



