130 SOUTH-AFEICAN BUTTEEFLIES. 



but none of them can vie in beauty with the most brilliant species of 

 NymphalincB or Hdiconince. The ground-colour in many is ochre- 

 yellow or deep brick-red thickly spotted with black, the females being 

 duller and often distinguished by an oblique whitish bar in the fore- 

 wings. The red in Acrcea Acara, Hewits., and A. Pctrcea, Boisd., is, 

 however, very vivid, and with a gloss of carmine in the living ^ s ; but 

 it fades — like all the red tints in this Sub-Family — to quite a dull hue 

 in the course of a few months after death. In the genus Flanema the 

 ground-colour is dull-brown or blackish, with broad fulvous, ochre- 

 yellow, or white patches and bars, and with no black spots except a 

 small group at the base of the hind-wings on the under side. The 

 American genus Actinote has a similar style of colouring, but the bars 

 and patches are of brighter tints, and the dark ground is in A. Ozomene 

 and A. Stratonice (Godt.), and allies, richly glossed with blue. The 

 heads and bodies of the Acrminm are (except in some of the South- 

 American species) conspicuously spotted with white and ochre-yellow, 

 and in some species of Acrcea the terminal half of the abdomen of the 

 male is suffused with an ochre-yellow or creamy whitish tint. 



I here adopt, as generically distinct, Doubleday's " Section II." of 

 the genus Acrcea, named Planema, but not his Sections III. and IV., 

 Gnesia and Telchinia, which seem to me insufficiently distinguished 

 both from each other and from the typical Section I. (Hyalites, Doubl.) 

 I have found it necessary to remove Alcena from the Sub-Family, as 

 there can be no doubt that the resemblance to Acrcea presented by the 

 two curious little butterflies constituting the genus — viz., A. amazoula, 

 Boisd., and A. Nyassce, Hewits. — is superficial only, and that they are 

 really an aberrant form of LyccBiiidce, allied to Liptena, &c. For Acrcea 

 punctatissima, Boisd., I am obliged to create a new genus (Pardopsis), 

 as it presents characters of considerable divergence. 



The Acrceince are butterflies of very slow flight, and usually con- 

 gregate in some numbers in their favourite haunts.'^ Most of the genus 

 Acrcea, especially those of the Horta group, prefer open localities, 

 where they bask with expanded wings on low flowers (strongly remind- 

 ing one of the European Mclitcece) ; but others, such as A. Natalica, 

 A. Buxtoni, and A. Cdbira, frequent the outskirts of woods, and the 

 species of Plancraa and Pardopsis are thoroughly sylvan. The deli- 

 berate movements of these butterflies and their complete disregard of 

 concealment, in conjunction with their very conspicuous appearance, 

 indicate very clearly that little if any active persecution of them is 

 carried on. As noticed above in the generalities under ^^ Bhopaloccra," 



^ Though so gregariously inclined, the Acraina would appear to be rather quarrelsome 

 and combative. Mrs. Barber wrote to me that she had noticed 9 s of ^. Horta struggling 

 with each other for the possession of a particular leaf of the food-plant, " although on the 

 same tree there were ten thousand equally good," and after a prolonged rough-and-tumble 

 fight, end by laying their eggs on each other and flying away with them ! 



Captain Harford, too, sent me two males of A. Encedon, which he captured while engaged 

 in a most pertinacious conflict on the ground. 



