1 82 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 



C. jasius is closely allied to C. epijasius (Reiche). an 

 Abyssinian species, which is chiefly distinguished from it by 

 possessing a large patch of pale blue on the upper side of the 

 hind-wings. 



In Drury's " Illustrations of Exotic Entomology," vol. i., 

 p. 2, and vol. iii., p. 42 (Westwood's edition), will be found an 

 account of the habits of C. castor (Cramer), a common West 

 African species, which much resembles C. jasius beneath, but 

 which is tawny on the upper side, with broad brown borders, and 

 has much shorter tails on the hind-wings. It was first brought 

 from Sierra Leone by Smeathman, a naturalist who visited that 

 place in the last century, and whose observations on the insects 

 which he collected are of permanent interest and value. " It 

 flies in the heat of the day with amazing rapidity, and seldom de- 

 scends within eight feet of the ground. It glances from the promi- 

 nent branches of one tree to those of another as swiftly as a 

 Swallow, and turns its head about instantly to the glade or 

 path, and will not surfer any person to approach within a 

 striking distance of it, but darts away on the least motion of 

 the body. If the collector exert his patience, it will at last 

 become more familiar and careless, and is then to be caught 

 upon some particular branch, to which it will appear more 

 attached than to another." These observations have been 

 erroneously supposed to apply to Papilio antimachus (Drury) 

 (cf. vol. iii., p. 2). 



CHARAXES XIPHARES. 



Papilio xiphares, Cramer, Pap. Exot, iv., pi. 377, figs. A. B. 



(1782). 

 Papilio thurius, Godart, Encycl. Meth., ix., p. 354, no. 15 



Nymphalis xiphares, Godart, Encycl. Me'th., ix., p. 357, no. 25 

 (1823); Trimen, Rhop. Afr. Austr., p. 167 (1866). 



