African Species of the Genus Acraea. 75 



The species is recorded (Trans. Ent. Soc, p. 330, 1902) as 

 having been untouched after death by ants which had 

 eaten every other specimen in a box except A. admatha. 

 Mr. Bennett's note (Dixey, Proc. Zool. Soc, p. 374, 1898) 

 describes the species in Sokotra as " mostly seen in the 

 hills, at an elevation of about 2,000 ft. Not hard to get, 

 the flight being slow and bold." Mr. Cravvshay describes it 

 at Nairobi (Butler, Proc. Zool. Soc, p. 923, 1900) as " com- 

 mon and fond of perching on a violet-coloured ' Devil's 

 Bit '-like flower which grows on the plains." 



The male armature shows a certain amount of individual 

 variation, the length of claspers and uncus being somewhat 

 inconstant. In the subspecies seis there is a tendency for 

 the claspers to be shorter. Neohule is undoubtedly the 

 mainland representative of mahela, from which it is rather 

 doubtfully separable. Curiously enough the $ armature 

 of the latter approaches more nearly the usually shorter 

 structure shown in neohule seis. 



23. ACRAEA ZAMBE3INA. 



Acraea zambesina, Aurivillius, Arkiv. for Zool., 5, No. 5, 

 p. 123 (1908) ; Mendes, Broteria. Ser. Zool., ix, fas. iii, 

 p. 160, pi. 7, f. 1 (1910). 

 Portuguese E. Africa (Zumbo on Zambesi R.). 



I have not had an opportunity of examining this 

 specimen and can therefore only give Prof Aurivillius' 

 description of it. 



9. Expanse 56 mm. Allied to .4. neoJttZe, Doubl., but having 

 the f.-w. fully clothed with scales and so devoid of transparent 

 areas ; it also dift'ers from neobvle in that the white centred basal 

 spot of area Ic of the h.-w. underside is much smaller than in 

 tteobule, and scarcely larger than the basal spot in la, 



F.-w. above dull reddish yellow with narrow border (only 

 1 m. broad), triangularly marked at the ends of nervul'es, the 

 nervules near margin more or less black. F.-w. with the 

 following black spots. One in middle of cell, two coalescent at 

 end of cell, and live discal spots (in lb, 3, 4, 5, and 6). The 

 basal spot in lb and the discal in 2 wanting in the present 

 example. Spots arranged quite as in neohule, but larger, and 

 somewhat as in the form sokotrana, Rebel. On the underside 

 the f.-w. is coloured and marked quite as above except that 

 it is more or less powdered with whitish yellow scales at the 

 margin. The h.-w. is almost exactly like that of neohule but 



