172 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



Africa there is a form of Danais chrysippus, called D. alcippus, with 

 white hind wings, and in all such places the protected form of H. 

 misippus is found with white wings; and in Aden, on the Kutch Coast in 

 Sind, and in parts of the interior of Africa, there is a form of I). 

 chrysippus called D. dorippus, without the black apical patch to the 

 four wings, and in these places the female of H. misippus is also 

 coloured and marked similarly. This form of the female of H. misippus 

 is frequently to be seen in Bombay and other parts of India, audit is 

 not at all uncommon, though not nearly so plentiful, as the D. chry- 

 sippus foimt. On observing this I have for some years collected all 

 the D. chrysippus I could get together in the expectation of getting 

 some D. dorippus, and in this I have not been disappointed, and I 

 have now specimens in my collection from Bombay, Poona, Khandalla, 

 and from the Punjab. It is, however, nothing like so common as the 

 female of H. misippus, which mimics this form, reversing the rule 

 that the imitating species are comparatively rare whilst the imitated 

 swarm in large numbers ; but this only shows that in former ages 

 in these places the form D. dorippus was a common form, and that 

 it has gradually been dying out and is now very nearly extinct. 

 On the principle that mimicry is merely for protection, and that the 

 protecting butterflies are those most abundant, we would here in 

 India naturally expect to find the several species of the sub-families 

 Euplceinge and Dauainse more frequently mimicked than any other 

 kind, because many of the species of both these sub-families are to 

 be found in great abundance in most parts of India, and all are 

 distasteful to birds, lizards, &c, and this is actually the case. It is 

 very difficult to demonstrate facts' of this nature from a private collec- 

 tion from want of sufficient specimens, but happily my collection 

 affords some very interesting examples, and though I cannot in all 

 cases show the exact species mimicked, some of the mimicking species 

 being from parts of India, from which I have not many specimens, 

 still I can show forms sufficiently allied to make the matter un- 

 derstood. We will first take the Euplceinae, of which the common 

 form is E. core. It has many allies all over India, and its allies are 

 more or less closely mimicked by several species of Papilio — Papilio 

 panope, Papilio clytia, Papilio lankeswara, Papilio dravidarum, and 

 the female of P. castor, also Papilio tavoyana, which exactly mimics 

 Euploea alcathoe from the same parts of India, and of which I happen 

 to have two good examples. There is another butterfly the female of 

 which also mimics the Euplceas — a butterfly called Hypolimnas bolina, 



