Larvae and Pupae of South African Rhopalocera. 538 
of annoyance and disgust, till once on the main stalk, he 
deliberately turned round and began to gnaw through the 
one he had just left, till it dropped off and fell to the 
bottom of the cage ; evidently he did not intend to run any 
risk of ever going on that fool’s errand again! I believe this 
was by no means a unique incident in the life of a cater- 
pillar, for I think it is commonly done by them, and 
accounts for the old stalks we so often find lying at the 
bottom of breeding cages. 
4. Charaxes xiphares, Cram, 
(Plate IX, fig. 4.) 
This butterfly occurs in some abundance in certain 
localities up-country in Natal. At Dargle in a peach 
orchard belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Kimber, to which 
they most kindly gave me free access, I found the ? ? of this 
butterfly in dozens, feasting on the peaches, but the ff, 
strangely enough, were exceedingly rare ; this I afterwards 
understood being the experience of all entomologists who 
have ever taken this huge Charaaes. As it had never 
been bred and its food-plant was quite unknown, I did 
not for some time succeed in obtaining ova, though I had no 
less than seven captive ? feasting every day on my sugar 
and water and laying nothing! I gave them a selection 
of all the bush plants I could think of, as at all likely to 
be the food-plant of a Charaxes. But I had not amongst 
them hit on the right one, and this at last I discovered in 
the usual way by watching a wild ? apparently laying on 
a shrub growing in the high bush, on the top of a mountain 
(5200 feet). It was a big shrub with sweet, “myrtle” 
scented leaves; and though I could not find her ovum 
there seemed but little doubt that it was correct, as my 
captive 2° who had just began to lay now, but very 
sparingly, and nearly always on the net of their cage, at 
once began to cover this “myrtle” plant with large pale 
straw-coloured ova. And the matter was quite decided 
by our finding a few Charazes ova on it, outside on the 
mountain a day or two later. So when the united efforts 
of my captive 2? had resulted in 99 eggs, I let them all 
go,and only hoped I should find our “ myrtle” plant easily 
at Donnybrook, which place I now went on to, only to 
encounter the most hopeless weather with deluges of rain 
Two «iphares larvae from ova found outside hatched out 
