634 Dr. G. B. Longstaff's Bionomic Notes on BuUerJlics. 



be Grastia asela, Moore. This dimorphic mimicry 

 is very remarkable. 



Mortehoe, Devon, July, 1902. The first specimen of 

 j^fjcria crahroniformis, Levvin, that I ever saw alive 

 was at rest on the trunk of a black poplar. Under 

 the idea that it was a hornet I knocked it down 

 and put my foot on it before discovering my 

 mistake.* 



Kandy, 21 February, 1908. A specimen of the Clearwing, 

 MeliUia chalciformis, Fabr., seen hoveiing over a 

 flower was first thought to be a Bomhiilius, then a 

 Skipper. It distinctly hummed in the net. This 

 instance is quoted to show that the moth, though not 

 suggesting a protected insect, certainly deceived the 

 observer. 



Simon's Town, S. Africa, 3 October, 1905. I had much 

 difficulty in distinguishing during life some fiies — 

 ? Psoas sp., and Frorachthas sp. — which closely 

 mimicked certain small black, white-ringed Bees, 

 Halictns albofasciatus, Smith, ^, which buried them- 

 selves in the flowers of a large Mcsenibryanthcmnm. 

 In the cabinet the insects look distinct enough, but 

 during life the resemblance, especially in their move- 

 ments and habits, was very striking.f 



Matherau, W. Ghats, 1908. At the end of March, in a 

 time of extreme drought, insects of various orders 

 were, naturally enough, attracted to such pools as 

 were left about the nearly exhausted springs. Among 

 the visitors were many long-waisted wasps of which 

 I secured a fair number, belonging, as I supposed on a 

 cursory glance, to several species. When Mr, A. H. 

 Hamm had set these for me at Oxford, he remarked, 

 " I see that you have taken a lot of Conops along 

 with the wasps that they mimic." Critical examina- 

 tion revealed: Hymenoptera : — Eunicnes 1 arcuatus, 

 3; Bnmenes sp., 1 ; Polistcs 1 stigma, 3; Icaria Iferru- 

 ginea, 1. Diptera : — Geria eumenoides, 7; Conops 

 sp., 3. 



Mortehoe, Devon, August, 1908. Two specimens of the 

 common British Conopid fly, Physoccphala rnfipes, 

 I^abr., suggested to me when alive a Ti^ocMlium 

 (Clear-wing moth) rather than a wasp. 



* Entom. Month. Ma-,'., 1903, p. 196. 

 t Trans. Ent. Soc. Lo'nd., 1907, p. 380.^. 



