and Captures in South Africa in 1905. 315 
Another butterfly that was very common was the 
Nymphaline, Lurytela hiarbas, Dru. It has a curious slow 
gliding flight backwards and forwards about bushes, for 
flowers seem to have no attraction for it; but if the flight 
of this butterfly, and its coloration, brown with a trans- 
verse white band, remind one of the Neptis group, its 
general appearance and shade-loving habits suggest a 
Satyrid. ZH. hiarbas orients itself with tail to the sun, but 
not very accurately. Conspicuous amongst the Nympha- 
lines was our old friend Pyrameis cardui, Linn., mostly in 
poor condition, but one very fine. The large genus Precis 
was represented by three species, sesamus, Trim., archesia, 
Cram., and cebrene, Trim., the latter not uncommon. One 
specimen of each was secured, but we had our first lesson 
in the elementary fact that to see a Precis is not always 
the same thing as to catch it. 
A sunny bank cleared of scrub was grown over with a 
Senecio not unlike the Oxford squalidus, Linn. Amongst 
these flowers Byblia goetzius, Herbst, was rather common ; 
they often settled on the ground ; they were all females, 
one of “intermediate ” character, the rest “dry.” A single 
B. ilithyia, Dru., was “very dry.” This and a specimen 
taken at Ladysmith were all of this species that we saw 
in South Africa. 
One of the spots in the park where butterflies were 
especially numerous was a sunny bank close to an open 
drain whose black stream evolved so much sulphuretted 
hydrogen as to suggest pollution by a laundry. Some 
Poinsettia bushes (including one with the bracts pale 
yellowish instead of the more usual scarlet), growing where 
the smell was most sickening, proved quite as attractive 
to butterflies as others in sweeter situations.* 
A few fine blue and black Papilios dashed about to 
tantalize us (they were almost certainly P. nireus, Cram., 
f. lyeus, Dbl.), but the common South African P.demodocus, 
Esp., proved much easier to capture, and between the Park 
and the town two specimens fell victims to our nets; one 
of them seemed to have been injured by a bird. 
_* This reminded me of a part of “The Happy Valley” at Hong 
Kong (in 1904), so fouled with human excrement that collecting 
was difticult, yet clouds of butterflies fluttered about the flowers 
of Lantana camara, Linn., growing around. There was no evidence 
that the insects were attracted by the ordure, but they were certainly 
not repelled. It is well known that Charaxes is a foul feeder. 
—GQ. B. L. 
