34 



EXTEACTS FEOM THE PKOCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON 



(October 7th — December 2nd, 1908). 



Wednesday, October 7th, 1908. 



li] Exhibitions. 



Mimicry of the melpomene-iAVL^ Heliconii by other 

 GROUPS OP South American Butterflies. — Dr. F. A. Dixey 

 exhibited specimens of Neotropical butterflies belonging to the 

 Erycinidse, Acrseiuse, Heliconinae, Nymphalin£e, Pierinse and 

 Papilioninse, and remarked upon them as follows : — 



"On March 18 last, Mr. W. J. Kaye, in exhibiting three 

 species of the Pierine genus Fei'eitte, together with specimens 

 of the Nymphaline Adelpha lara, Hew., called attention to the 

 fact that these species, which all bear a general i-esemblance 

 to each other, are found together in the Chancamayo district 

 of Peru at an elevation of from 2500 to 3000 feet. He added 

 that it was wrong to svippose that any HeUconms of the 

 melpo7nene-\\kQ group entered the combination, inasmuch as 

 Heliconii of this pattern did not ascend to such an elevation, 

 or if they did, it was only as a rare exception. For the like 

 reason Mr. Kaye thought that my suggestion, made in 1896 

 (and previously in 1894), of an association between P. leuco- 

 drosime and H. melpomene was ' an impossible conclusion.' 



" I am of course perfectly ready to accept the testimony 



brought forward by Mr. Kaye as to the spatial relations of 

 these forms in the district named, but I observe with interest 

 that in a note to the record of his exhibition in our recently- 

 published 'Proceedings' (Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1908, p. 

 xxiii), he mentions the fact that according to Seitz, ' in 

 Colombia Peo-eute leucodrosime, Papilio euterpinus, Adelpha 

 isis and Heliconius melpomene all occur together on the same 



