

MR. TRIMEN ON MIMETIC ANALOGIES AMONG AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 5<>7 



rioides is rather local than scarce, only occurring in woods at a considerable deration ; 

 and, from Mr. Bowker's observations in Kaftraria, the $ would seem to be little, if.it 

 all, rarer than the <?, though, in the only Natalian habitat in which I found the speeiei 

 tolerably common, the females were very much scarcer than individuals of the opposite 

 sex. As regards the ? P. Merope*, however, I have no doubt of its comparative 

 rarity, as one may take males abundantly in the forests for days together, without once 

 meeting with a female. 



The resemblance to Ucheria presented by the austral variety of Papilio Leon la* 

 (P. Brasidas, Felder, Spec. Lep. p. 19, no. 249), appears in the cabinet bat a alight one 

 in comparison with the striking imitations just mentioned; but it is a fair-enou h like- 

 ness in nature, especially when the insect settles f. Certain specimens (usually, but not 

 invariably, females), which have the spots of the fore wings reduced in number and 



diminished in size, are much more like Echeria than others; and, looking at the insect 

 in comparison with the type Leonidas of Western Africa (which resembles no known 

 Danais), I have no doubt that the southern form has been, and is probably still being 

 gradually modified in the direction of the dominant southern Dart' s. 



Danais Echeria presents two varieties as regards the colour ol* the pale spots in the 

 fore wings — one (the type) in which those spots are ochre-yellow (fig. 3), and the other 

 in which they are white (fig. 7). The former is the prevalent form in the Cape Colony, 

 and the latter in Natal ; but I have taken both forms in each Colony, as well as inter- 

 mediate examples in which the spots near the costal margin of the fore wings are white 

 or whitish, while the rest are yellow. The Genea-foxm of the $ Papilio Merope mimios 

 both these varieties, and offers corresponding intermediate specimens; while the ? P. 

 echerioides , which only inhabits the eastern portion of South Africa, almost ahvrn 

 resembles the white-spotted variety, though I have seen, too, unusually small specimens 

 which copy the yellow- spotted Belter ia. 



With reference to Papilio Merope, I think it well in this place to offer some observa- 

 tions on what I believe to be a remarkable instance of polymorphism in the ? of this 

 species. First figured by Cramer (in 1779 and again in 1782), P. Merope has long beer 



i 



known as a native of Western Africa, and more recently as also inhabiting Southern 

 Africa and Madagascar!. Its coloration is very conspicuous, and unlike that of any 



other Papilio, the upper surface being uniformly pale sulphur, or creamy-yellow, the 

 fore wings with a narrow costal and broad hind-marginal black border, and the hind 

 wings (which are tailed) having a more or less broken black band across the disk, and 

 some black hind-marginal lunulas. The Folders, in their ' Species Lepidopterorum ' 

 (1861), have separated the single species generally recognized into three, viz. (in addi- 

 tion to the type Merope) P. sulphureus of Palisot de Beauvois (figured by that author 



t 



Th 



$ Merope will 



t P. Leonidas ha. the habit (rare in a PapiUo) of settling not unfreqnently on the projecting fa, : of some tore 

 na ther « remaining motionless, with the wings closed and hangm 

 &krw, for which species, in this position, I have, on more than one occasion, mistaken it. 



i *. Horace Waller has " ' "~*"* Vmm ""^ °" th ° 



tributary of the Zambesi. 



shown 



! 



