The Bionomics of South African Insects. 507 



to be merely a local race of F. leonidas, as eveiy one must 

 do who has seen a long series of the two forms. I have 

 found typical leonidas pretty plentifully in the low veldt 

 of Mashonaland (Mazoe and Umfuli Rivers) and I also saw 

 it at Delagoa Bay, I have always been struck with its 

 marked difference in habit from the Southern hrasidas. 

 Its fliglit is strong and rapid, and it always goes straight 

 ahead like F. policcncs and F. antheus, which it somewhat 

 resembles on the wing in spite of its very different shape. 

 Brasidas, on the other hand, has a slow sailing flight, going 

 backwards and forwards over the same ground and often 

 frequenting one spot for days. Now there is absolutely 

 nothing suggestive of protection in the flight of leonidas, 

 none of that slow sailing movement to show off its coloration 

 which is so characteristic of the protected Danctinm and 

 Acrivinm. Moreover, there is no Danaine occurring south 

 of the Zambesi which is anything like it at all, and this 

 is ver}^ significant. I cannot therefore resist the conclu- 

 sion that in this country leonidas is one of those un- 

 protected species which has succeeded in the struggle for 

 existence by its strong rapid flight, and perhaps by pro- 

 tection in the larval stage like F.demodocus and F. corinneus, 

 whereas in Natal it has found it advantageous, owing to 

 the abundance of Amauris echeria, to adapt its coloration 

 in mimicry of that species by the reduction in size and 

 number of the spots in the fore-wing and the toning down 

 of the colour from glaucous green to greenish-white, 

 accompanied by the marked change in its mode of flight. 

 It does not seem to me that convergence Avould explain 

 the facts, for if leonidas is itself protected it should exhibit 

 throughout its range that slow flight which is the 'hall 

 mark ' of protection, which it certainly does not in 

 Mashonaland. I believe in Central Africa it is said to 

 mimic T. jietivcrana, and it would be most interesting to 

 find out whether it has there assumed the Danaine flight." 

 "Malvern, Feb. 21, 1S97. — I have been collecting in tlie 

 Karkloof Forest some twenty miles north of Maritzburg for 

 the last three weeks. The only Amauris occurring there 

 is cclieria, which is very common, though not this year, 

 which is a curiously abnormal one, and as usual the 

 typical female of Fapilio ccnea is common, the dominicanus- 

 like form occurring only very rarely. But last year, so my 

 host Mr. Jas. Ball informs me, the latter was very 

 abundant — quite as common as the typical one, and he 



