198 SOUTH- AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 



This interesting new species I have named after its discoverer, Mr, B. 

 Ayres, of Pinetown, in ISTatal, who took a single male in that locality. Mr. 

 W. D. Gooch, who brought the specimen to my notice, subsequently took 

 another ^ , and also the $ above described, at his farm on the coast of Natal. 



Until April 1883 I saw no further examples of this butterfly; but on the 

 23d of that month I received from Colonel Bowker seven specimens just 

 captured by him at Pinetown, and he has since forwarded eleven others from 

 the same locality. These others were taken in December and January, and 

 among them were the paired sexes captured on January i6th. The wings of 

 most specimens that had been out for some time were much tattered, which 

 Colonel Bowker attributes partly to the insect's pugnacious habit of attacking 

 and driving away other butterflies, and partly to the assaults of a large Mantis. 

 He describes Ayresii as flying up and down the edge of a wood, at a height of 

 from six to ten feet from the ground. 



Localities of Lacliiwptcra Ayresii. 



I. South Africa. 

 E. Natal. 



a. Coast Districts. — D'Urban [Little Umlhanga] {W. D. Gooch). 

 Pinetown {B. Ayres and J. H. Boiclier). 



Genus PYRAMEIS. 



j Pyrameis, Hlibn. (and Vanessa, Hiibn.), Yerz. Bek. Schmett., p. 33 (1816) ; 

 Doubl., Gen. Diurn. Lep., i. p. 202 (1849). 

 Cynthia (pars), Fab., "Hlig. Mag., vi. p. 281 (1807)." 



Imago. — Head moderately broad, densely hairy; eyes closely 

 covered with fine short hairs ; ^alpi long, projecting considerably in 

 front of head, convergent at tips, — second joint elongated, thickened 

 beyond middle, set with long hairs superiorly and outwardly, scaly and 

 finely downy beneath, — terminal joint well developed, somewhat flat- 

 tened laterally, acuminate, scaly, and slightly downy ; antennoi rather 

 long, with an abruptly- formed, flattened, elongate-ovate club, having 

 its terminal joint minute and pointed. 



Thorax rather long, robust, densely hairy, especially on breast and 

 on back of metathorax. Fore-wings : more or less produced apically, 

 and sometimes bluntly angulated at extremity of lower radial nervule ; 

 costa but slightly arched ; hind-margin moderately sinuate, emarginate 

 about middle ; inner margin nearly sti'aight ; costal nervure ending 

 about middle of costa ; first and second subcostal nervules arising close 

 together, a little before extremity of discoidal cell, — third at a long 

 distance beyond it, and terminating at aj)ex ; upper disco-cellular 

 nervule obsolete, middle one very short and oblique, lower very long, 

 but so much atrophied as to be rudimentary only, — its termination 



ing very widely from the S , and, except for its large size, not unlike the ? of Atella Colum- 

 bina (Cram.) In the Collection of the British Museum there are, however, two 9 s like 

 that mentioned in the text — one from Sierra Leone, and the other from the Gaboon River — 

 which to a great extent resemble the 9 Harnia Althca (Craui.) of the same region. 



