MR. TRIMEN ON MIMETIC ANALOGIES AMONG AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 51 



i 



and Congo. The species may at once be known from its allies by the peculiar pattern of 

 the fore wings — the inferior pale marking running almost parallel with the Bubapical 

 bar, and nearly to the posterior angle, instead of forming an inner-marginal spaa 

 adjacent to the band crossing the hind wings. Panopea Lucretia, Cram., appears to 

 mimic this Acrcea; but the resemblance is not so accurate as that between P. Ttorquiuu 

 and A. Aganice. Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast near Ashanti, and Calabar are ilie 

 known localities inhabited by P. Lucretia, which seems as rare as P. Tarquima, one 

 specimen in the British Museum, two in Mr. Hewitson's collection, and two in the pos- 

 session of Mr. Swanzy being all the examples that I have seen. 



10. Acr^a Zetes, Linn. (Tab. XLII. figs. 8, 9.) 



Nat 



N. H 



Yar. Acraa Acara, Hewits. Exot. Butt. iii. pi. viii. f. 14, 15. 



Acwa Caffra, Felder, Reise der Novara, ii. p. 369, pi. xlvi. f. 10, 11. 



North of the Equator, the type-form of this species has an extensive range on the 

 western coast, but it does not appear to occur further to the south than Fernando Po. 

 Specimens in various collections have been received from the island in question, as well 

 as from Calabar, Ashanti, Cape Palmas, and Sierra Leone. In Southern Africa, tin- 

 species is represented by a well-marked variety, A. Acara, Hewits.*, which differs, on 

 the upper surface, in having all the markings of the fore wings strongly defined (the red 

 ground-colour being wholly free from the almost universal fuscous suffusion so constant 

 in the type), and in possessing a conspicuous subapical ochreous bar. Both in the type- 

 form and in the southern variety, the colouring of the female is universally very much 



duller and fainter than that of the male. 

 From Old Calabar and Ashanti a rare and handsome Nymphalide, Panopea Bomb 



tatii, Doubl. (Gen. D. Lep. pi. 37. f. 3, ?)> which closely imitates the type Mr* 



Zetes, has been received. A male from the former district, in the collection of 31 . 



Hewitson, and a female from the latter, in the British Museum, are the only Wert- 

 African specimens that I have seen ; but these two examples respectively resemble in 



their differences the dissimilar male and female of the Acrcea, the female exhibiting an 



incomplete subapical whitish ray, answering to that of the ? Zetes. 



In Natal BoiLnOti reappears t, in company with, and evidently »«*-C<- ™ 

 red and black colouring of the fore wings and their ochreous subapical bar) the ^m 

 form of A. Zetes ; and here, again, each sex of the Aer.a is copied by the c ™«jm mg 



,a. A singular example of the male Panopea, taken at Port > atal by 



of the Panop 



Acma Caffra of Felder. Mr. Hewitson notes (he. cit.) 



an 



A. Menippe ." 



Six of these were taken 



t I have examined eight Natalian specimens in collections, five males a ^ coritr ibuted specimens to th 



by 3£r. Men, the Superintendent of the Botanic Gardens at D'Urban, tiho as ^^ in9ect j, one f tbe 



outh-African Museum and to my own collection, and who informed me a l . ndividual (a fcmale) on the 



rarpst^iu. ,. , .. ... ... , a* „™+„ «* Acraa Zetes. t saw out 



rarest of the native butterflies, but haunts the same spots asAcraa 

 wi *g during my stay in Natal, but did not succeed in capturing it. 



