ii8 SOUTH-AFEICAN BUTTEEFLIES. 



Larva. — " Ground-colour yellow ; a median dorsal green stripe, and 

 some narrower ones on each side, from head to tail. Both head and 

 tail forked. About two inches long." — J. H. Bowher's description of 

 two specimens found at Northdene, near Pinetown, Natal, feeding on 

 " Ribbon grass," May 1885. 



Pupa. — Bright grass-green throughout, semi-transparent, surface 

 like shining wax. No markings of any kind ; rather paler on wing- 

 covers. Length, 10 lines. Thick and rounded, especially the abdo- 

 men, which is dorsally globose and very strongly convex. The main 

 dorsal prominence highly ridged and rather acute. Head blunted, not 

 bifid, but with two minute pointed tubercles on eye-covers. 



I received the pupa here described on 22d May 1885, from Colonel 

 Bowker, who wrote that it was developed from one of the two larvae above 

 mentionied. It was suspended by a well-developed caudal stalk to a small but 

 dense silken web on the under side of a leaf of broad ribbed grass. The imago, 

 a fine $ of M. diversa, appeared on May 31st. Colonel Bowker subsequently 

 sent me a crippled M. diversa produced from the other pupa, which he retained 

 in Natal. 



This Melanitis seems considerably rarer than M. Leda in l^atal. I met 

 with only a few examples near D'lJrban and Verulam in February 1867 ; 

 their haunts and habits were precisely those of Leda, and they were quite as 

 difficult to see when settled among dead leaves and undergrowth in the shade 

 of the woods. 



Localities of Melanitis diversa. 



1. South Africa. 

 E. Natal. 

 a. Coast Districts. — D'Urban. Verulam, Pinetown (/. H. Bowker). 



Genus LETHE. 



Lethe, Hiibner, Verz. Bek. Schmett., p. 56 (1816); Butler, Cat. Sat. Brit. 



Mus., p. 114 (1868). 

 Dehis, Westwood, Gen. Diurn. Lep., ii. p. 358 (185 1). 



Imago. — Head rather wide, hairy ; eyes large, with a close clothing 

 of short hair ; palpi long, very much flattened laterally, separated but 

 not divergent, — the second joint, very long, with a few short appressed 

 hairs above and a smooth dense fringe of hair beneath, — the terminal 

 joint minute, slender, smooth ; antcmwc short, very gradually incrassated. 

 Thorax short, pilose, stout. Fore-wings in some species (Z. Buropa, 

 (Fab.), and allies) produced apically ; costa rather strongly arched ; 

 apex rounded ; hind-margin entire or bluntly dentate ; inner margin 

 straight ; costal nervure in a good many species moderately or slightly 

 swollen at base ; first and second subcostal nervules given off before 

 extremity of discoidal cell, not far apart ; discoidal cell of moderate 

 length, wide near extremity, closed rather obliquely, the third disco- 

 cellular nervule forming a somewhat acute angle at junction with third 



