( 70G ) 



XVI. The Life History of Pseudacraea eurytus hobleyi, 

 Neave. By G. D. H. Carpenter, B.A., B.M., 

 (Oxon.), F.E.S. 



[Read November 6th, 1912.] 



When I came out to Uganda as a member of the Royal 

 Society's Sleeping Sickness Commission, I obtained per- 

 mission from the Society to send the Lepidoptera which 

 I might collect to Prof. Poulton ; and it is to frequent 

 correspondence with him that the following interesting 

 result is due, which confirms the suggestion made by 

 Dr. Karl Jordan that several forms of Pseudacraea, 

 hitherto regarded as distinct species, would be found to 

 be only polymorphic forms of one species. 



At the beginning of 1912 my investigations into the 

 bionomics of Glossina took me to Biigalla, one of the 

 Sesse Islands — a group lying in the N.W. corner of the 

 great Lake Victoria, some twenty-five miles S.W. of 

 Entebbe. Here I soon found that Pseudacraeae of the 

 three forms terra, hobleyi, and ohscura, together with 

 intermediate forms, were extremely abundant ; terra being 

 more numerous than the other two put together. Every- 

 thing was favourable for testing Dr. Jordan's suggestion. 

 I obtained many females in succession, and put them in a 

 large box with gauze front, hoping they would oviposit on 

 the leaves which I put in ; but none would lay. I was 

 not at this time aware of the specific food-plant, and had 

 not been able to find the food-plantof Psewc?oc9'«ea lucretia 

 which Prof. Poulton suggested would probably be the 

 food-plant of the hobleyi forms. Thinking that the atmo- 

 spheric conditions in my hut, on top of an open grassy hill 

 about 150 feet above the lake, were not suited to the 

 forest-loving butterflies, I took the box down into the 

 forest in which the Pseudacraeas fly, and stood it on 

 supports in a large basin of water. Still the Pseudacraeas 

 would not lay, and I was beginning to despair. However, 

 on Sunday, June 16th, 1912, in the forest on the lake 

 shore, I saw a Pseudacraea which I had been following 

 about, and vainly trying to catch, settle on the under surface 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1912. — PART IV. (FEB.) 



