Dr. F. A. Dixey on Mimicry in certain Butterflies. 119 



general appearance of his specimen seemed to him to 



indicate that it came nearest to such forms as ada, (Vain., 

 and clams, Wall., and he therefore placed it tentatively in 

 his genus Tachyris next after those species. In 1889 

 Messrs. Grose Smith and Kirby * figured both the upper 

 and under side of the same form; "Wallace's figure only 

 showing^the latter. On the plate in " Rhopalocera 

 Exotica "' the species appears under Wallace's name of 

 Tachyris abnormis, but in the text and indices its genus is 

 given as Delias. The figure is said to represent a male, 

 but is really (like Wallace's) that of a female. The mistake 

 as to sex was afterwards corrected by the authors. f In the 

 same work, vol. ii. Pierinae, p. 17. abnormis is once more 

 referred to the genus Delias, and is said to belong to the 

 group of /;. ladas, Grose Smith, and />. ornytion, Godm. & 

 ' S; i'v- Bui in the note {Ibid., p. 22) cited above, the authors 

 add. " Herr von Mitis points out ('Iris,' vi, |>. 114), 

 that the four-branched subcostal nervure removes both 

 Abnormis and Euryxantha from Delias." This is quite 

 true; and euryxantha, which appears in the plate (" Rhop. 

 Exot.," vol. ii. Pierinae ; Delias, vi, figs. 7, 8) as a Delias, 

 is in the text called a Tachyris. 



IJonrath.t who described euryxantha as a variety of 

 abnormis, expressed a doubt as to whether Grose Smith 

 and Kirov's figure of abnormis represented a, male as stated ; 

 he adds, however, that those authors in their text rightly 

 placed abnormis in the genus Delias, "to which genus, 

 instead of to Tachyris, Wallace, if he had known the male, 

 wotdd certainly have also assigned it." Staudinger § 

 definitely pronounced Smith and Kirby 's figure to be that 

 of a female. 



As a matter of fact, neither abnormis nor euryxantha 

 is either a Delias or a Tachyris. So far as I am aware, the 

 liist author to perceive their true affinity was von Mitis, || 

 who. as above stated, pointed out that their neuration 

 was not that of Delias. Von Mitis himself places them in 

 the neighbourhood of Judith, amalia, emma, etc.; i.e. in 

 the group named by Moore Euphina, though ranked by 

 the former writer under the wide designation of Pieri!'. 



* " Rhopal. Exot.," vol. i, Pierinae, PI. II, figs. 6, 7. 



f Ibid. vol. ii, Pierinae, \>. 22. note. 



t BM. Enibom. Zeitschr., xxxvi, p. 435 (1892). 



§ ■■ Iris," \ ii. pp. 117, IIS (1894). 



Ibid, vi, [.p. 113, 114 (1893). 



