Re ee Ee Par eo, a ae ze 
350 Mr. C, O. tare Minnson’é Five Years’ Observations 
dered if they were night- or dusk-feeders, and have gone 
down twice at noon to have a look. The Harmattan is 
on here just now, and it is extremely hot and dry. In 
such weather Monomorium becomes a dreadful nuisance 
in its search for moisture, and at mid-day most open- 
country insects are fairly quiet and seek the shade, but 
this particular Lycaenid appears to be very active just 
then. They are very rapid fliers and may be seen, some 
chasing each other round the branches or in the open near 
the trees, while others occupy tell-tale positions on the 
twigs. I wonder if this habit of “tapping” Coccids is 
confined to open-country forms in districts of rigorous dry 
seasons and scarcity of water. But now I am on dangerous 
ground. Peradventure I may be numbered in that “ vast 
majority of collectors and field-naturalists [who] are poor 
philosophers,”’ * or in that other equally melancholy crowd 
of “ zoologists [who] are sorry failures when it comes to 
observing the living animal in its natural surroundings.” + 
But I do lay the flattering unction to my soul that I am 
not a “ collector.” 
10. Other Lipteninae—E pitolina, Mimacraea—with Habits 
simular to those of Teratoneura as described in the last Section. 
[A few weeks after the observations recorded on pp. 347— 
350, Farquharson observed and sent the much smaller 
Liptenine Epitolina dispar Kirby, “as a specimen of a 
Lycaenid with the same (adult) habits as Teratoneura.” 
The butterfly bore the following note: “ March 15, 1917. 
Small Lycaenid observed driving away ants from plant- 
gland, to suck secretion. Habit similar to hairy larva 
Lycaenid | Teratoneura], only probing plant-gland ”’ instead 
of Coccid secretion. ; 
On Dec. 14, 1917, three Epitolina dispar were cap- 
tured, together with one male Mimacraea fulvaria Auriv. 
“ Drinking plant-gland secretion on Coccid-and-ant-infested 
plant” is the note borne by one dispar, and a shortened 
form of the same by the others. The Mimacraea has in 
addition, “‘ Captured at Ibadan in act of drinking secre- 
tion.” On hearing that this latter was a Lycaenid Farqu- 
harson wrote, April 28, 1918: ‘I was astonished at the 
Acraeine Lycaenid mimic. I would give something to 
breed it out. I saw several of them at the same place, 
and it never entered my head that they were Lycaenids 
at all. I would never doubt mimicry after that.” | 
* « A Naturalist in Borneo,” R. Shelford, London, 1916, p. 207, 
{ Ibid., p. 208. 
