428 Messrs. J. J. Joicey and W. J. Kaye on 



amalfreda, cybelellus, tellus, etc., seems to be exclusively 

 the Lower Amazon. But among the andremona forms are 

 to be seen some interesting intermediate hind-wing forms, 

 thus tending to show that progressive development in both 

 fore- and hind-wing took place at the same time, for 

 andremona must be looked upon as wholly intermediate 

 between elimaea and erato (= vesta). In the streaking of 

 the hind-wing there are no specimens so half-streaked as 

 that figured by Oberthiir (Et. Ent., xxi, PI. 1, fig. 9), in 

 which only the three basal streaks are present, and these 

 are even blackish suffused. Several specimens in the 

 present collection show four instead of five streaks; the 

 fifth streak, that between vein 4 and 5, clearly being the 

 latest to be developed. A specimen with fore-wings like 

 elimaea and hind-wing with four slender streaks has the 

 basal streak very weak, and in two other instances the 

 basal streak is seen to be also very weak. It is tolerably 

 clear that it was the two sub-basal streaks that were earliest 

 developed, for one can see by referring to Oberthiir's plate 

 (loc. cit., figs. 4, 7) that where the first rudiments of streaks 

 are to be seen, it is at the roots of the two sub-basal streaks, 

 but not the basal streak. 



In the specimens of andremona with an apparent over- 

 laying of white marks, it is to be seen under a powerful 

 lens that the white scales are in reality red scales that have 

 lost their colour and become semitransparent. If such a 

 specimen be held up to the light, the whole of the group 

 of markings round the discoidal cell is seen to be semi- 

 transparent. It is clear that the red scales lose their red 

 pigment prior to developing the yellow pigment, and it 

 may be taken probably as a general rule in Heliconines, 

 that where red is found replaced with yellow, the transition 

 stage is a white, or, as it appears when highly magnified, 

 a semi-transparent stage. 



The mimetic resemblance of the series of erato to that 

 of melpomene is remarkable, and shows wonderfully close 

 parallelism. What is most striking is the similar darkening 

 of the fore-wing in both species. In erato the number of 

 darkened specimens is ten, and includes such forms or 

 transitional forms as oberthilri and hemicycla. Four of these, 

 viz. three oberthuri and one hemicycla, are extreme, but still 

 showing a good deal of suffused yellow. No form is so 

 completely darkened as is to be found a<mong the melpomene 

 forms funebris or stygianus. 



