148 Mr. Roland Trimen's Observations on the 



wliite bar of the forewings, and the much smaller white 

 patch of the hindwings. The tyjDe of the form Trophonius, 

 fio-ured by Mr. Westwood in Arcana Entovwlogica, is 

 clearly a southern example. The nearest approach to it 

 known from the western coast of Africa is the example 

 fio-ured by Mr. Hewitson [Exot. Butt., iv. pt. 72, Oct. 

 1869, pi. xii. {Papilio), f 40), which as regards the fore- 

 wino-s presents a broader, more oblique, almost AvhoUy 

 brick-red, sub-apical bar, but (unlike the form Hip])ocoon 

 in the same region) has quite as broad a patch in the hind- 

 wino-s as is found in the southern Troplionius, and is little, 

 if anything, larger than the latter.* The Dionysos-ioY\\\ 

 of 2 is peculiar to Western Africa, and, in company with 

 the curious allied form figured by Mr. Hewitson {loc. cit. 

 f. 39), is of high interest, not only as combining the 

 features of Hippocoon and Trophonius, but as indicating, 

 in its possession of merely a trace of black between the 

 white sub-apical bar and inner-marginal space of the 

 forewings, the mode in which (as suggested by me in the 

 Transactions of the Linnean Society, loc. cit., with refer- 

 ence to the $ Meriones of Madagascar) the extraordinary 

 modification of the forewing markings of the js was most 

 probably initiated. Dionysos is, in fact, of all the con- 

 tinental African js the least profoundly modified form as 

 compared with the $ . All the western ^ s, like the ^ s 

 (but more so in the outer portion of hindwings), are dis- 

 tinguished from southern examples by the strongly-marked 

 fuscous rays between the nervures. 



While, therefore, I follow Mr. Butler in separating as 

 species, in the present lack of intermediate forms, the 

 Avestern and southern races of Merope, I Avish to observe 

 that I cannot support the nomenclature which he has 

 assigned to the several sections in this arrangement. It 

 will be seen above that under the head of " (b.) Merope 

 (true)," Mr. Butler quotes Cramer's earlier figures (tab. 

 151, A, B) of the $, associates with them, as $, Tro- 

 phonius, Westwood, and gi\'es the $ from Knysna, in 

 South Africa (presented by myself in 1859), as repre- 

 senting Cramer's type. But a reference to Cramer's 



* The explanation of this discrepancy seems obvious. The western 

 Hippocoon closely mimics the largest of western Danaides {Ainaurh 

 JWnviiis), which has a small white patch in hindwin<?s; while Trophonius 

 is modified in imitation of the considerably smaller Danais Chrynippiis, 

 in which nearly the whole fiehl of hindwino-s is brick-red. In both the 

 western antl southern TrophnHhis-'ioxm of $ the snbapical bar of fore- 

 wings IS sometimes ahnost as red as the other markings. This variation 

 appears to be in imitation of the Don^pus varietv of Danah Chri/.^ijjpuis. 



