374 THE PLACE OF MIMICRY 



(auliuorii x ) of the African P. dardanus (merope). 

 Wherever it occurs in other parts of the continent 

 dardanus is represented by sub-species with mimetic 

 females 2 and non-mimetic males. The sub-species 

 merope, from the West Coast to the Victoria Nyanza, 

 possesses three forms of female, hippocoon and trophonius 

 resembling the Danaines — Amauris niavius and Limnas 

 chrysipptis ; planemoides 3 resembling the Acraeine 

 Planema poggei. The sub-species polytrophus from the 

 Kikuyu Escarpment, tibullus from the East Coast, and 

 cenea from the south and south-east have the additional 

 female form cenea, mimicking Amauris echeria and 

 albimaculata. The planemoides form is wanting from 

 the sub-species cenea, but exists in polytrophus and may 

 probably be found in tibullus. The hippocoon form of the 

 eastern and south-eastern sub-species resembles the form 

 of Amauris niavius, viz. dominicanus, which is found in 

 the same district. Ancestral females, the trimeni form, 

 intermediate between the non-mimetic Abyssinian females 

 and hippocoon, the most primitive of the mimetic forms, 

 have been found in polytrophus and tibullus. All the 



1 A single mimetic female corresponding to the hippocoon form of 

 merope, &c, and a single mimetic female corresponding to trophonius, but 

 both tailed, have now been found. 



2 Even the primitive trimeni form is a rough mimic of Amauris niavius, 

 sub-species dominicanus. 



3 The planemoides form is a recent addition of the highest interest to 

 our knowledge of this classical example of Mimicry. While the other 

 mimetic female forms all resemble Danaine butterflies, this newly 

 discovered female bears a beautiful likeness to Planema poggei, one of 

 the Acraeinae (see also pp. 337-8). The Mimetic Resemblance was first 

 recognized by Mr. S. A. Neave, MA., B.Sc, of Magdalen College, 

 Oxford (Proc. Ent. Soc, Lond., 1903, p. xli), while Mr. Roland Trimen, 

 F.R.S., has described the female form, conferring upon it the appropriate 

 name planemoides (Proc. Ent. Soc, Lond., 1903, pp. xxxix, xl). This new 

 form has not yet been proved by breeding to be one of the females of the 

 merope-group ; but a curious accident has supplied the missing evidence. 

 Among some examples captured in 1902-3 by Captain T. T. Behrens, 

 R.E., on the west shore of the Victoria Nyanza, near Entebbe, is a 

 partial hermaphrodite, in which, upon the left wings, traces of the non- 

 mimetic male colours and markings are intermingled with the utterly 

 different mimetic pattern of the female. This interesting individual may 

 be studied in the Hope Department. (See also Trans. Ent. Soc, Lond., 

 1906, p. 281, plate xviii, fig. 4.) 



