SATYEIN^. 119 



median nervule. Hind-ioings broad ; costa very prominent at base, 

 but beyond it only very slightly curved ; hind-margin more or less 

 deeply scalloped, usually with a marked projection, or even a short 

 tail, at extremity of third median nervule ; discoidal cell very short 

 superiorly, the disco- cellular nervules being curved and very oblique, 

 and the lower one meeting the median nervure at a very acute angle 

 just at the origin of the second median nervule. Fore-legs of ^ not 

 very small, slender ; the tibia and short tarsal joint densely fringed 

 with short soft hair ; those of the $ rather larger (having a much 

 longer imperfectly articulated tarsus), thinly clothed with hair. Middle 

 and hind legs with the femur smooth, slightly downy beneath, the tibia 

 and tarsus rather closely set with short bristles and with longer ones 

 beneath ; spurs of tibiae rather long and slender. Abdome^i short, not 

 {or but little more than) half the length of the inner margin of hind- 

 wings. 



Larva. — " (Of D. Portlandia) long, sub-cylindrical, longitudinally 

 striated ; the head with two erect horns ; and the body terminating in 

 two obliquely porrected points." — Weshoood, Gen. D. Lcp., ii. p. 3 59- 



Pupa. — " Short, thick, rather constricted across the base of the 

 abdomen ; head-case obtusely rounded." — Westwood, loc. cit. 



Notwithstanding the distinct fades of the two South- African species 

 which I here refer to Lethe, the slight structural differences they present 

 do not seem to warrant their separation from that genus. The uuswollen 

 costal nervure of the fore-wings cannot be considered of much import- 

 ance in a group presenting that character very feebly in many of its 

 members ; and the more obliquely-closed discoidal cell of the fore-wings 

 and shorter one of the hind-wings are not of themselves generic 

 distinctions. I was disposed to think that the prolongation of the 

 costal nervure of the hind-wings to the apex was peculiar to the species 

 under notice, but I observe that Mr. F. Moore (in his Lepido^tera of 

 Ceylon, p. 16) gives this feature as one proper to Lethe in his defini- 

 tion of the genus. The blunted, sub-truncate outline of the wings 

 and the hind-marginal contour in the South- African forms very nearly 

 resemble those of the Japanese L. Sicelis and the Chinese L. Segonax, 

 &c., figured by Hewitson in Exotic Butterflies (vol. iii.) 



Of some thirty other species recorded, all but one — Lethe Portlandia, 

 (Fab.), an aberrant form from the United States — are Asiatic, rang- 

 ing from Ceylon to Celebes and from North India to China and Japan. 

 The two South-African species have but a limited distribution, L. den- 

 drophilus, (Trim.), being apparently found only in the wooded parts of 

 the eastern districts of the Cape Colony and of Kaffraria, and Z. Indosa, 

 (Trim.), inhabiting similar tracts in Natal and the Eastern Transvaal. 

 Both insects are above the middle size and quite similar in general 

 colouring and marking, but Indosa has much brighter ochre-yellow on 

 the disc of the hind-wings, and is further rendered very conspicuous 

 by the possession of pure white well-defined spots (instead of the 



