38 SOUTH- AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 



Among the species tabulated, probably the second, Amauris Fcheria, 

 a Danaine of wide distribution in wooded localities, is the best protected 

 butterfly in South Africa, judging from the number of its imitators. 

 The most accurate copyist is the female Fapilio Cenea (type), and the 

 smaller specimens of this Papilio cannot in the field be distinguished 

 from the Amauris. It is the variety of A. Echeria, with all the spots 

 of the fore-wing white, which prevails in Ivafirland and Natal, that finds 

 most imitators, being very closely copied, not only by a slight (white- 

 spotted) variation of Fapilio Cenea, but also by the female of Fapilio 

 Ucherioides, by individuals of both sexes of Fapilio Brasidas, by both 

 sexes of the Nymphaline Euralia mima, and by the female of Fseudacrma 

 Tarquinia. Though the females of Fapilio Cenea and F. Echerioides 

 are so much alike in their imitation of A. Echeria as to be indistinguish- 

 able on the wing, the males of these species of Fapilio are utterly 

 dissimilar both from their respective mates and from each other.'^ 



The case of Fapilio Cenea presents certainly the most remarkable 

 mimetic analogy yet recorded among butterflies. The male of this 

 species (the Southern representative of F. Merope, Cram., of Western 

 Africa) is a very fine conspicuous insect, and has a peculiar colouring 

 of very pale creamy-yellow, with a broad black border to the fore- 

 wings, and a black band across the disk of the hind-wings, — the latter 

 wings bearing each a long broad process or " tail," while the female 

 exhibits three quite difierent forms (all with the hind- wings untailed), 

 each of which is entirely unlike the male, but imitates with more or 

 less exactness one of three prevalent species of South- African Banainm? 

 It is observable, too, that numerous intermediate variations of the females 

 exist, showing a series of links between the three prominent forms, 

 and serving to indicate how plastic for further development the poly- 

 morphic female Cenea remains. 



Other circumstances which add to the great interest of the case are 

 ( I .) that the very closely allied Fapilio Merope of Western Africa also 

 has a polymorphic female, several forms of which have been described 

 as distinct species, and are imitative of Danainoi inhabiting the same 

 region; and (2) that in Madagascar the likewise nearly related Fapilio 

 Meriones, Feld., has but one form of female, and that form only slightly 

 difiering from the male. Even more surprising is it to find, as I 

 learn from Mr. Ch. Oberthlir, that the representative of F. Merope at 



^ The nearest alloy of P. FcJierioides is the West-African P. Cynorta, Fab. Curiously 

 enough, while the males are very much alike, it is here the females that are totally dis- 

 similar ; for while the female Echerioides mimics an Amauris, the female Cynorta (= P. 

 Boisduvallianus, Westm.) exactly copies the female Acrcea Gea, Fab., a butterfly of quite 

 different pattern. 



^ The varying females of the mimicking species of Indian and Malayan Papilioncs, de- 

 scribed by Mr. Wallace (loc. cit. ), appear in no case directly to copy more than one pro- 

 tected species. But in the remarkable cases of Papilio Memnon and P. Androgens, the 

 extreme mimicking form of the female { = Achates, Cram.) has the hind- wings tailed in 

 imitation of the protected model, although the male and less modified femnles of her own 

 species are quite tailless. 



