MR 



ON MIMETIC ANALOGIES AMONG AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 515 



■ 



the localities named, the Papilio has also been found at Sierra Leone and the Gaboon 

 at the former of which places the Acrcea occurs. 



There is a difference in the outline of the wings between the male and female of Acraa 

 Gea, as in many other species of the same genus; and this discrepancy i^ reproduced ii 

 Panopea Rirce, the female of which has the fore wines blunter and broader than tin* 



of the male. So deceptive is the mimicry of the <? Gea, by the <j Jllrce, that Godarl 

 (loc.cit.) quotes Drury's figure of the latter as a representation of t lie Acrcea. In the 

 Linnean collection there is a specimen of the Panopea labelled " Acr«><> Gea, Fab. . 

 and I found an example associated with a specimen of the same Acnca in the Banksian 

 Collection at the British Museum. The figure of " Mtryta" in Clerck's M cones' 

 (t. 31. f. 180), to which Linne refers in the twelfth edition of the 'Systema Natune,' i- 

 evidently drawn from a female of the same Panopea*. 



This species of Panopea further presents several varieties of the female, which agree wif h 

 io known examples of Acrcea Gea, but, strangely enough, are very fair imitators of certain 

 varieties of an allied species, A. Euryta, occurring in the localities (Caiabar and Congo) 

 which they inhabit f. In the British Museum there is an interesting specimen of tin 

 female Hirce, in which the bands, though paler, are coloured like those of the male. 

 This example only bears the label "West Africa," and I am therefore unable to at< 

 whether this apparently rare form of the female occurs in company with that which is 

 white-banded. 



Most of the examples of Melanitis Phegea, Tab., a member of the EwryteUda, are 

 mimickers of Acrcea Euryta ; but a female specimen, from Ashanti, in the National Col- 

 lection (which is, I believe, the type of M. Pammakoo, Westw. Gen. D. Lep. pi. 68. f. 3) 

 bears a nearer resemblance to the female A. Gea in the position of the subapical bar of 

 the fore win^s, and in the extension of the white band of the hind wings over the inner 



of the fore wing 



7. Acrcea Euryta, Linn. 



Nat 



This is a most variable species in both sexes. Mr. Hewitson has recently (October, 

 1867) devoted two plates of his < Exotic Butterflies ' to the delineation of the principal 

 varieties %. It is not unlikely that a knowledge of the stations and habits of these but- 



* Mr. Butler, who kindly pointed this out to me, has suggested that the Panopea should stand as 7> fir** - Clerc 

 «* name being older than Drury's. But it seems dear that Clerek figured the insect in the behef that tf **s M * 

 ■„in -vs.,. • . . . -, • vi- ~~jun* with the view of avoiding confusion in 



E "'->!ta, which 



B,1 tt-' Oct. 1867), 



77. 



that he quotes Clerck's figure. 



■ *• Hewitson, w h„ has already, in his - Esotic Butterflies ■ (part for October, 1 80 ) flela,., ,„ he a„e , 

 "■'"• B« njla , an( , m whose mn J on j saw these 8mgal ar varieties of P. Hire,, is about to puMisli the latter al.o 

 '"! I therefore rofrai,, from more particularly describing the imitations in question. 



. t After coining Mr. Hetvitson's fine series of this butterfly. I am disposed to agree with hun that ,. . *jmm 

 lmp " sslble to separate the numerous forms which he has i 

 * COnd P Iate ' fi £- 29, which appears to he a distinct species. 





male mown 



