138 Mr. Roland Trlmen's Observations on the 



and Cenea took a definite shape. Mr. H.W. Bates had 

 sent me his admirable paper on the Heliconida3 of the 

 Amazons Valley,* which so ably discnsses and explains 

 Mimetism among Lepidoptera and other insects. My 

 friend Mrs. Barber, in June of that year, sending me 

 specimens of Cenea from near Grahamstown, requested 

 me to send her a male Cenea, in order that she might 

 figure him in her series of drawings of the South- African 

 Butterflies.f I soon discovered that I was not in a posi- 

 tion to supply even this modest order ; no such creature 

 as a " male Cenea''' could be found either in the collection 

 of the South- African Museum or in my own. A strict 

 examination of that suspicious character, P. Merope, 

 resulting in nothing but males, I felt convinced that it 

 was "a case;" and subsequent close comparison of the 

 two butterfles only strengthened my conviction that they 

 were the sexes of one and the same species. I at once 

 communicated my view of the case to Mrs. Barber, who 

 (as well as her brother, Mr. J. H. Bowker) was somewhat 

 incredulous, though manifestly not unprepared to find it turn 

 out a true one. Mr. Bowker, indeed, had discovered the 

 widely-differing sexes in the not dissimilar case of Papilio 

 Echerioides, Trimen,:j: and so could not fail to be in a 

 position to admit the possibility, if not probability, of my 

 view. 



During the earlier part of the year 1867, I made a 

 collecting excursion in Xatal, and indulged the hope that 

 I might then liaA^e the opportunity of taking the sexes 

 together, but in this I was disappointed, though I once 

 saw Merope in pursuit of Cenea. ^ 



On proceeding to England, later in the same year, 

 I pursued my examination of the sex of all the accessible 

 specimens of Merope, Cenea, Trophonius, Dionysos, 

 Doubl., and Hippocoon, Fab., and found nothing but 

 males of the first, and females of the rest. In a paper 

 read before the Entomological Society on 2nd December, 

 I mentioned my belief that Cenea was the $ Merope,\ 

 and intimated my intention of treating fully of this and 



* Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xxiii. 



fin the same letter Mrs. Barber stated that she had noticed Cenea 

 layinp; her eggs on the underside of the leaves of Vepris lanceolata; kee])- 

 ing about the upiiennost branches of the tree, so that it would not be easy 

 to secure the larvse. 



X See Trans. Ent. Soc, 1868, p. 7G. 



§ See Entom. Monthly Mag. March, ISfiS, p. 220. 



II Trans Ent. Soc, 1 8C.8, p. 70, note. 



