( ci ) 



British Museum, and in the Hope Department by Mr. H. 

 Britten, who had prepared and examined the male armature 

 and other structural characters of a large number of speci- 

 mens, and had also determined the sexes of all the pairs as 

 well as the entire series of Mylabris farquharsoni and of 

 M. hermannioicles . As a result of these investigations, the 

 assemblage was found to break up into 4 species belonging 

 to three genera or subgenera. Two of the species were new 

 and each of them was represented by a variety sufficiently 

 distinct to receive a name, as well as by the typical form. 

 Detailed descriptions will be found in Mr. K. G. Blair's 

 systematic section of this paper (p. cvi). The fact that 

 these beetles occur together is sufficiently proved by Mr. 

 Farquharson's letters * and in still greater detail by the 

 tabular statement on page cii, showing the dates of Mr. 

 Lamborn's captures in 1913 and 1914, and Mr. Farquharson's 

 in 1915. 



The table on p. cii shows that these protected species form a 

 combination with common warning or synaposematic colours 

 and also probably with the instinct to associate together, as in 

 the Ithomiine butterflies, etc. The close resemblance between 

 their patterns is well shown in Plate B, where the insects are 

 figured slightly below the natural size. It is, of course, possible 

 that their association is an indirect result of other instincts, 

 viz. that of seeking certain food-plants. Against this view is 

 the fact that the food-plants are varied and also the occur- 

 rence of all these forms in great numbers (all the 1915 records 

 in the table) on Arachis, which, as Dr. 0. Stapf informs me, 

 is an annual plant " of Brazilian origin, but now grown all 

 over the tropics. Very little seems to be known about its 

 enemies. See Jean Adam, L'Arachide, Paris, 1906 (publ. by 

 Gouvernement Gen. de l'Afr. Occid. Franc), particularly p. 65. 

 See also Kew Bulletin, 1901, pp. 175-200." 



As to the date at which Arachis was probably introduced into 

 Africa, Dr. Stapf has kindly sent the following references : — 



" Je ne suis pas eloign e de croire a un transport du Bresil 

 en Guinee par les premiers negriers et a d'autres transports 



* In a note written Dec. 15, 1916, Mr. Farquharson stated that " all 

 the Decatomas occurred together and all disappeared together," 



