- 
54 Miss M. E. Fountaine’s Descriptions of 
the day I left Maritzburg. But I soon found that every- 
thing in the life-history of this beautiful up-country 
Charaxes was of much slower development than of those 
inhabiting only the coast districts; in which invariably 
the period between Jaying and hatching, and also between 
each moult is five days, or even occasionally (especially 
with C. candiope) not more than four, whereas with 
wiphares these intervals were much longer, as to begin 
with the ova did not hatch out under 10 or 12 days. Most 
of those I had, hatched on February 28 (16), and March 1 
(12), after which the remaining ova, though many of them 
had changed colour and therefore were evidently fertile, 
showed no further signs of coming out at all; indeed I 
have a theory that in their natural state, they hibernate 
as ova, or as very young larvae; but I have only just 
begun upon what still remains to be discovered about the 
early stages of this butterfly, for as I soon left for Jolivet, a 
much warmer place, my larvae continued to feed up well, 
though very slowly, and the first moult did not occur till 
some of them were 12 and some even 14 days old: the 
next moult, however, was rather shorter, mostly from 8 to 
10 days in duration, but it varied considerably in different 
individuals, as was the case of these larvae throughout their 
existence. For instance, the first to enter into the final 
skin was on April 4, and this was one of the last to have 
hatched out, and the next day, April 5, the last of them 
(with one exception which was far behind the rest) 
changed his skin for the third time only, this one being 
one day older than the one who had just entered his final 
moult the day before, and the same age as several more 
who made that change the same day. I was now in the 
intense heat of Umzinto, and the wiphares did not seem 
any the better for it; they were still feeding up extremely 
slowly, and several died for no apparent reason, in fact 
they seemed to be “feeling the heat,” and nothing would 
induce them to pupate, which as I now had many young 
larvae of C. candiope, C. cithaeron, C. brutus, and C. ethalion 
to attend to, I was especially anxious for them to do, 
though I had found their food-plant (Cryptocarya woodia, 
acuminata), Kafr name ‘ Umquotungwa,” everywhere 
down on the coast, growing more abundantly than up- 
country. These larvae were certainly very like their close 
ally C. cithaeron, the dorsal marks being practically the 
same, but the green was quite different, being much 
