176 SOUTH- AFRICAN BUTTEEFLIES. 



group, but at or beyond end of cell in Eiiryta and G&a group. Hind- 

 %oings with discoidal cell shorter ; in Euryta group exceedingly short. 



Abdomen more slender, longer ; in Euryta group sometimes longer 

 than the hind-wings. 



Larva. — Like that of Acrcca, but with longer spines. 



Pupa. — Like that of Acrcect, but with back of abdomen armed 

 with several pairs of pointed tubercles or long filaments ; the head and 

 back of thorax also tuberculated in some species. 



This genus has a very distinct facies, owing to the blackish or 

 dusky-brown ground-colour of the wings, plainly banded with rufous, 

 yellowish, or w^hite, and the length of the fore-wings and abdomen. 

 The palpi are in nearly all cases black, streaked with white, instead of 

 yellow, as in Acrcea ; and the long abdomen has in both sexes the 

 incisions of the segments superiorly, a row of large spots on each side, 

 and the inferior surface generally, ochre-yellow. 



The point of origin of the first subcostal nervure of the fore-wings, 

 used by Doubleday to distinguish the two groups represented by Lycoa 

 and Gca, is an unstable character in Planema, for while in the Lycoa 

 group it seems constantly to be before the end of the discoidal cell (as 

 in Acrwa), it is just at the end of the cell in the ^ s of P. Euryta and 

 Aganicc, but beyond it in the $ s of those species as well as in both 

 sexes of F. Gca. 



Planema is a thoroughly tropical and sylvan genus of Aawina;, 

 strongly characteristic of Western Africa, whence about twenty closely- 

 allied species have been recorded. The males usually present yellowish 

 or rufous bands, and the females broader white ones, but the latter 

 occasionally present both white and coloured markings, and in some 

 cases the bands are white in both sexes. 



The Planema^ are, even more than the Acra^o), the objects of the 

 closest " mimicry " by Nympkalinm of the genera Pseudacroia and 

 Elymnias, and one, the $ of P. Gea (Fab.), is also faithfully imitated 

 by the ^ of Papilio Cynorta, Fab. The Fscudacrcca^ present some of 

 the most thoroughly deceptive mimicries known, their imitation ex- 

 tending to both sexes, however different in colouring these may be, 

 and following every variation in the models, however slight. 



Only two South-African species are known, P. Esehria, Hewits., 

 belonging to the Lycoa group, and P. Aganicc, Hewits., belonging 

 to the Euryta group. Both are natives of Natal, but while the former 

 extends as far south-westward as King William's Town, the latter is not 

 known to range beyond the Igora River in Kaffraria Proper. They 

 frequent wooded places, and fly higher at times than any of the species 

 of Acrcea; that I have seen on the wing. 



