1884.] LEPIDOPTERA FROM ADEN. 479 



modified in imitation of L. alcippus, and occurring at the Victoria 

 Nyanza, further indicates that the species exists or formerly did 

 exist there. On the other hand, we have received L. chrysippus 

 from South, South-west, and Eastern Africa, the Mascarene and 

 Comoro islands, and the island of Socotra ; but nowhere have we 

 known it to occur together with L. alcippus ; the latter species is 

 indeed omitted from Mr. Trimen's ' Rhopalocera Africse Australis ' 

 and from other works on the Butterflies of South Africa. 



Judging from its present distribution, it would seem likely that 

 L. alcippus had formerly extended from the Somali Coast through 

 Abyssinia almost in a straight line to the Gold Coast, and that 

 southwards its range had passed from Cape Gardafui through the 

 interior to the Nyanza, and thence, still avoiding the coast, had 

 continued downwards to the Orange River ; whether this represents 

 its present distribution cannot at present be decided owing to our 

 meagre knowledge of the Lepidopterous fauna of Africa. 



In Asia L. chrysippus occurs commonly from Turkey, through 

 Persia, Afifghauistan and India, to the PhiHppines, but is not 

 accompanied by L. alcippus. On the other hand, a very similar form, 

 L. alcippoides, has been described by Mr. Moore as occurring in 

 India, and is the L. alcip>pus of Marshall and De Niceville's 

 ' Butterflies of India,' of which these authors say : — "Its appearance 

 is so erratic over a large extent of country that in distribution as 

 well as in inconstancy of the extent of white, the idea of its being 

 only a casual variety of i. chrysippus is suggested." The type, 

 from Nepal, in Mr. Moore's collection, is paler than L. alcippus, and 

 the secondaries, instead of being pure white, are tinted with fulvous ; 

 and looking to this fact, together with the paucity of specimen? taken 

 (probably eight or ten in all, so far as I can gather from the 'Butterflies 

 of India '), their coexistence with abundance of L. chrysippus ^, and 

 the probability that an ancestral form would sometimes occur where 

 the entire difference was one of colour, I should have no hesitation in 

 regarding L. alcippoides as a case of reversion. In Col. Swinhoe's 

 collection there are four of these modified forms of L. chrysippus, 

 one with white veins from Bombay, one from Mhow, one from 

 Kurrachee, and one from Deesa, the last three of the L. alcippoides 

 type ; he may have other examples unset. On the other hand, 

 I believe that the tetramorphic type found at Aden represents 

 L. chrysippus in its ancestral character, probably preserved through 

 the immigration from time to time of the African forms which occur 

 on the Somali Coast. 



Two of the four forms of Limnas have been received from the 

 Somali Coast, a third is in Mr. Godman's collection from Cape 

 Gardafui, and the fourth is in the Museum collection from Socotra ; 

 all four are therefore in the neighbourhood. Moreover manv Butter- 

 flies have been known to fly greater distances, and only recently I 

 was informed incidentally by the Hon. H. S. Thomas, of the Indian 

 Civil Service, that he had " frequently seen quite small species of 



' M. de Niceville inforraed me that this was the case. 



