428 On African Butterflies of the SuhfamiJy Pierin[e. 



will frequently develop all tlie phases cliaracterlstic of the 

 seasons simultaneously. Prof. Aurivillius cannot understand 

 this ; therefore he says of Teracolus daira : — " It is very 

 peculiar to find this form, which is coloured like a summer 

 form, flying in the middle of the dry season together with 

 highly developed dry-season forms of other species. I there- 

 fore do not think that T. nouna, Lucas^ is really a dry-season 

 form of daira." If the Professor had paid more attention to 

 my argument — that the seasonal phases of species are only 

 variations formerly coexistent which have become more or 

 less seasonally fixed — there would be nothing peculiar to him 

 in the existence of a wet phase in the dry season, so long as 

 it was not as abundant then as in the wet season ; nor would 

 he have any reason for coming to the conclusion, on such 

 evidence, that T. nouna could hardly be the dry pliase of 

 T. daira. 



In the second place, I do not agree that the relation between 

 J3. Westwoodi and ahyssinica has not been cleared up. I 

 consider that, as I have described the seasonal phases of both, 

 the only question between lepidopterists is as to whether they 

 shall be called species or local forms — a question of absolute 

 unimportance, which can never be cleared up so long as 

 naturalists hold different views as to what constitutes a 

 species. 



In the same page upon which Prof. Aurivillius makes the 

 remarks above discussed he describes and figures a very pretty 

 little species of Ilerpcsnia, to which he gives the unnecessarily 

 descriptive name " Herficenia eriphia, God., var. hib. extrema 

 straminea, n. var." Now, in the first place, it is not Ilerpcenia 

 eriphia at all, the dry phase of which barely differs from the 

 wet, nor is it 11. melanarge, the dry phase of H. iterata (which 

 I suspect is the species recognized by Prof. Aurivillius as 

 nyassce^ Lanz), but it is my H. Jacteipemns, described from 

 Abyssinia, and, I believe, sunk by Aurivillius as a synonym 

 of H. eriphia, probably because my friend Trimen, in his 

 * South African Butterflies,' vol. iii. p. 78, says he should 

 regard //. melanarge^ judging from the description, as the 

 same as var. a (the dry phase of //. eriphia), and lacleipennis 

 from Abyssinia, notwithstanding its unusually small size, as 

 referable to the same variety, if it were not for the description 

 of the hind wings. Mr. Trimen had then not seen the types 

 of either species or local representative (whichever one may 

 please to call these closely related forms) ; and, therefore, 

 when the Professor was in London he should have carefully 

 examined them himself, and so at least saved himself from 

 perpetrating so terrible a synonym for a pretty little butterfly 



