ACE^IN^. 179 



Pupa. — About ^ inch long. Clialky-white, with a faint yellowish 

 tinge. A series of very fine linear black markings along dorso-thoracic 

 ridge. Antennae and wing-nervures faintly indicated by delicate linear 

 black markings. Five rows of abdominal black spots, viz., two dorsal, 

 two lateral, and one ventral ; these markings are sometimes slightly 

 tinged with orange, and the dorsal ones on the first three segments of the 

 abdomen are conspicuously orange, hlack-edgcd, tiibcrcidar, and pointed. 

 At anal extremity three looped black marks. Head very slightly 

 bifid. Thorax prominently angulated at bases of wing-covers, and 

 with a pair of smaller projections posteriorly. Duration of pupal state 

 eight days. 



Plate I. fig. 2a. 



Mr. J. P. Mansel Weale, from whose drawings and notes the fore- 

 going descriptions of the larva and pupa are drawn up, writes that in 

 some specimens kept in a dark box all the resulting puptB were pale- 

 ochreous, with the black and orange markings much intensified. Of 

 seven imagines bred in 1873, Mr. Weale wrote that the first, second, 

 and sixth that came out were of the form with all the bands yellow ; 

 the fourth with yellow bands, except the subapical bar of the fore- 

 wings, which was white ; the fifth with all the bands white ; and the 

 third and seventh with brick-red bands and yellow subapical fore- 

 wing bar. 



The type-form of P. Uschria is by its brick-red coloration well 

 distinguished from its congeners of similar size and pattern. The 

 species is, however, nearly related to P. fiava (Dewitz), P. Carmentis, 

 Doubl., and P. Lycoa (Godt.), as is apparent on comparing with these 

 butterflies from Western Africa the yellow-banded and white-banded 

 examples of Escbria. P. fiava is wholly yellowish-banded (judging 

 from Dewitz's figure ^), but has in fore-wing a very broad subapical 

 patch instead of a narrow bar, and a much paler under-side colouring. 

 In P. Carmentis all the bands are pure white, as in many ^ s of the 

 variety of Eschria, but the great development of the markings of the 

 fore-wing (where the broad subapical bar irregularly joins, or almost 

 joins, the enlarged inner-marginal patch), and, on the contrary, the 

 considerably narrower hind-wing band, render the former very distinct. 

 The markings of P. Lycoa are also wholly white, but semi-transparent ; 

 and in the fore-wing, instead of an inner- marginal patch, there is an 

 oblique discal bar, of an inner large and outer small spot, almost 

 parallel to the subapical bar. 



The only near ally in South Africa that has hitherto been found is 

 P. Aganice (Hewits.), but this is a much larger insect, and at once to 

 be recognised by having only one pale marking in the fore- wing, viz., 



^ Nov. Act. K, Leop.-Car.-Deutsch. Akad. Naturf., xli. 2, pi. xxv. f. 10 (1S79). 



