The Bionomics of South African Insects. 497 



19 and May 1, 1898, and of the Aliena taken on March 20 

 and April 3 of the same year. 



It occurred to me that Castalins calice mi^ht also belon^ 

 to the same group, but Mr. Marshall points out, in the 

 passage quoted below, that its habits do not support 

 this view. 



" Balislmry, Jan. 8, 1S99. — T should very much doubt 

 whether Castaliiis caliee is convergent with or even a 

 mimic of Al/vnn nyassm. Their habits and stations are 

 very different, and moreover C. calice (of which I believe 

 C. mehena will prove to be the summer form) is common 

 in Natal ami the Transvaal, where A. nyassm does not 

 occur. I should not regard C. calice as an unpalatable 

 species, and its colouring is by no means conspicuous owing 

 to its small size : it is an active little insect resembling 

 T. plinius, LyctT.nesthes, and other arboreal LycmnidiB in its 

 liabits. In the intense light and shade of this climate its 

 black-and-white markings are rather protective as it rests 

 on the shiny leaves of its food-plant (Zizyphus)f^\xs>i as are 

 the brilliant white under-sides of some lolai. The con- 

 vergence you suggest between^, nyass/e and Nejytis agatha 

 and Nyctemera Icuconoe is highly probable, but Aviauris 

 and the black-and-white Acraeas are all absent from the 

 Mashona plateau, being all coast or low-veldt forms. 

 ALwia, Fentila, and perhaps Dcloneura, are in my opinion 

 the only unpalatable South African Lycxnidm, and the 

 latter is more likely to be a mimic of some day-flying 

 moth. Catochrysops inashuna used to be very abundant 

 here, but only occurring in September and October. I only 

 saw two or three this season and always when I had no 

 net." 



Three specimens of another interesting and probably dis- 

 tasteful species of the same Lycsenid genus ALvna amazoula 

 captured on the same day, Sept. 26, 1897, as the conspicu- 

 ous day-flying and probably unpalatable geometrid moth 

 Pctovia dichroaria were presented by Mr. Marshall to the 

 Hope Department. Mr. Marshall had taken the group in 

 the same locality at Malvern, Natal, and, as the passage 

 from his letter quoted on p. 498 indicates, he believes that 

 the resemblance is synaposematic. In the cabinet the 

 likeness is stronger on the under than upon the upper 

 surface, but is probably strongest of all upon the wing. 



Almna amazoula is a Lycsenid of great interest, probably 

 exhibiting a generalized Miillerian resemblance to the 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1902. — PART III. (NOV.) 33 



