3i8 SOUTH- AFEIC AN BUTTEEFLIES. 



aware that any species except C. Zoolina (Westw.) — wliicli Colonel 

 Bowker found about a yellow-blossomed thistle in KafFraria — resorts to 

 flowers for food ; the moisture exuding from wounds in the trunks 

 and branches of trees being the favourite drink of these butterflies, 

 which are also attracted by damp earth, the droppings of animals, and 

 even decomposing carcasses. Honey and the entomological " sugar " 

 also readily entice some of the species. In velocity of flight the larger 

 species of Charaxes excel all other butterflies ; and if it were not for 

 their eagerness to drink, and their other constant habit of returning 

 after a brief excursion to the same branch or bare twig which they 

 fancy, the collector might almost despair of capturing them at all, espe- 

 cially the males. Notwithstanding the thickness and rigidity of their 

 wings, they soon fracture the extremities by fluttering among rough 

 twigs in search of food or in pursuit of each other, and acquire a worn 

 and tattered appearance, the slender tails of the hind- wings being earliest 

 broken or lost altogether. In these appendages of the hind-wings 

 there is considerable variety ; they are usually two in number on each 

 wing, and situated on the third and first median nervules respectively ; 

 but in C. Varanes (formerly included in the genus PMlognomci) only 

 that on the third nervule is present, and in the males of G. Zoolina 

 and Neanthes, while the females have two tails, there is but one on 

 the first nervule.'^ 



As regards distribution in South Africa, the coast of Natal is appa- 

 rently the centre of the group, ten of the fifteen species being knowu 

 to me to occur there. Of the other five, C. Castor and Phoeus are 

 recorded from Delagoa Bay only ; C. Xipharcs ranges from Knysna in 

 the Cape Colony to the Bashee and Tsomo Rivers in Kaffi-aria Proper ; 

 C. Pelias represents C. Saturnus in the Western Districts of the Cape; 

 and G. Jahlusa, occurring in the east of the Colony, KaSraria, and also 

 on the Zambesi, is most probably a native of Natal and other inter- 

 vening countries as well. Besides Xipharcs, Pelias, and Jahlusa, only 

 Ethalion and Varanes inhabit the Cape Colony, extending westward as 

 far as the George District. 



103. (1.) Charaxes Zoolina, (Westw). 



$ Charaxes, n. sjy., Angas, Kafirs lUustr., pi. xxx., f. 7 (1849). 



'^ Nymphalis Zoolina, Westw., Gen. Diurn. Lep., pi. liii. f. i (1850). 



„ „ Trim., Ehop. Afr. Aust., i. p. 178, n. 103 ; and((^ ) 



ii. p. 341 (1862 and 1866). 



Exp. al., {$) 2 in. 1-3 lin. ; ($) 2 in. 5-7 lin. 

 ^ Whitish-sulphtireous inclining to greenish, with fuscous hind-mar- 

 ginal border. Fore-iving : border very broad apically, reaching almost 



^ A similar sexual difference is observable in the Indian species Bernardus, Fab., and 

 nearly allied forms, in which the tail on first median nervule is in both sexes much reduced, 

 but smaller in the male ; while that on the third nervule, always very small and acute in 

 the male, is elongated and blunt in the female. 



