I].—The varieties of PAPILIO DARDANUS CENEA 
in the collection of the Durban Museum, 
by 
C. N. Barker, F.E.S. 
With Prate VII. 
HE variations that occur among the females of Papilio dardanus 
throughout its range, which extends over the greater part of 
the non-arid regions of Africa 
and in the form meriones, Feld. to 
Madagascar—is, perhaps, the most wonderful illustration of poly- 
morphism that occurs in nature. ‘The males are invariably tailed, the 
females generally without these appendages, though there are not a 
few exceptions to the rule. The following are some of the exceptions, 
as figured by Dr. Eltringham in his beautifully illustrated work 
‘African Mimetic Butterflies.” 
Papilio dardanus-meriones, Feld. from Madagascar. 'The males and 
females are alike in coloration, form and markings, except that in 
the latter respect the female has retained, or developed from the costa, 
at about one-third of the length of the cell, a broad, very oblique, 
band which crosses more or less the width of the cell and follows on 
its upper-side the direction of the white, or light-coloured, cellular 
bar which is common to all forms of P. dardanus, 2. The presence 
of this oblique black band, immediately beneath the light cellular 
streak, in the Madagascar and Comoro Islands forms, appears to me 
to be strong evidence of its ancestral character, which has its fuller 
development in all other forms of Papilio dardanus. 
Abyssinia provides us with two remarkable fully-tailed forms, 1.e, 
P. dardanus antinori, female forms niavioides, Kheil, and ruspine, 
Kheil. The former follows in the contour of its pattern and color- 
ation cenea-hippocoon, Fabr.; the latter that of cenea-trophonius, 
Westw., except that in both cases the spots forming the sub marginal 
series of the hind-wings are much enlarged and elongated. 
Possessing rudimentary tails, Dr. Eltringham figures two interesting 
examples, viz.: P. dardanus, 2 hippocoon, Fabr., from the Gaboon, 
and an extraordinary form P. dardanus polytrophus, Q form trimeni, 
Poulton, from the Kikuyu Escarpment, British East Africa, which in 
ground colour and suppression, or its replacement by dusky suffusion, 
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