NYMPHALIN/E. 323 



— the two outer lines sometimes extending nearly to inner-margin ; 

 transverse streak of fore-tving continued completely across this wing, 

 from costa beyond middle to inner margin immediately before anal 

 angle; surface beyond streak much washed with glistening-silvery 

 (usually more so than in fore-iving) ; an imperfect, greyish, ferruginous- 

 ringed ocelhis next streak, close to costa, and two similar, more 

 imperfect ocelli, between anal angle and second median nervule ; 

 bordering hind-margin, a row of rather indistinct, glistening, greyish 

 lunules. 



Other variations of the under side often occur, notably one in which 

 the ground-colour is olivaceous-yellow, with all the striation and 

 markings strongly and conspicuously marked, and the ocellate sub- 

 marginal spots more developed, and forming a complete or almost 

 continuous series on both wings ; and another (in the ^) in which 

 olivaceous-brown prevails, and the striation is rather indistinct, but the 

 ocellate spots of hind-wing are well developed, and the silvery gloss is 

 unusually bright, and there is in both wings a terminal cellular silvery 

 patch. 



The South-African examples differ from those I have examined 

 from different parts of Tropical Africa in having the basal white of the 

 fore-wing so much restricted. They are, however, variable in this 

 particular, some females exhibiting a small inner-marginal white patch, 

 extending as far as median nervure ; but none that I have seen present 

 nearly so much white as is found in specimens from Cape Coast Castle 

 and Sierra Leone on the West Coast, or Quilimane and Zambesi on the 

 East Coast, in which, in both sexes, the white largely invades the 

 discoidal cell, and in the ^ nearly fills it. In the hind-wing, also, the 

 white in the Tropical examples is extended to a point considerably 

 nearer anal angle.^ 



Larva. — Dull bluish-green above ; pale whitish-green beneath, 

 irrorated with very minute silvery dots. On 6th, 8th, and loth 

 segments, a pale-ochreous, somewhat crescentic, mark on the back, — 

 that on the loth segment very faint and only found in full-grown 

 specimens. A thin, sinuated, silvery lateral stripe. Head flat, armed 

 with four backward-sloping, recurved, somewhat serrated horns, bright 

 turquoise-blue beneath, and in young specimens edged with reddish. 

 Anal segment flattened, bifid. Feeds on a species of Ehus (probably 

 R. lo:vigata). 



Plate I. fig. 6. 



1 The nearest known ally of Varanes is the very curious Charaxes JBalfouri, Butler {Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. Land., 1881, p. 176, pi. xviii. f. 6), from the island Socotra, which altogether wants 

 the basal white suffusion, and has on the hind-wing an almost linear tail on third median 

 nervule, and a very short tail on the first median nervule. The hind-marginal lunules of the 

 hind- wing are developed into a continuous festooned border, black internally, blue mesially, 

 and pure-white externally. The under side is very like the olivaceous variation of Varanes 

 above noted, but the silvery-white transverse streak is enlarged into an angulated white stripe, 

 and the hind-wing has a conspicuous series of broad white hind-marginal lunules. The hind- 

 margin is throughout much more dentated than in Varanes, particularly in the hind-wing. 



