KAST AFKICAN IN8KCTS, 1029 



G7. MvLAUEis DiciNCTA Bevtol. In tin's connection I cauie 

 iicross a note to the effect that this red -and -black beetle was 

 excavating a burrow on a native path through the mealie crops. 

 (Morogoro, 9.vii. 17.) 



68. ]\Iylai3Ris sp. A number of Mylahris beetles with 

 scarlet-marked elytra were feeding upon some Cucuviis plants 

 on May 29th and again to-day. On both occasions there were 

 about eight to each plant and none on the surrounding herbage. 

 The interesting thing about them wns the way the males (which 

 were much smaller thiin the females) followed the females up and 

 down the stem or leaf as the case might be, stroking their elytra 

 and abdomens with their antennfe. }3oth antennte of the male 

 Avould be raised simultaneously, and with these he stroked the 

 female most caressingly. The lai-ger beetle fed unconcernedly or 

 walked about, followed closely by her devoted attendant. (Ngong, 

 Nairobi, 3. vi. J 5.) 



LEPIDOPTEEA. 



The specimens referred to were received for Nos. 70, 75, 76, 

 77, 78, 80, and probably 73, 74, and 79. 



One never gets tired of the wonderful butterfly fauna of East 

 Africa ; and between Mt. Kenia and Mozambique at one time or 

 another, the writer has seen extraordinary assemblages of them 

 in almost inconceivable numbers and variety, but nothing ever 

 surpassed the display on 17. iii, 16, when they were feasting on 

 the dead transport animals left stranded on the wayside by the 

 tide of Avar. 



On leaving M^oshi for Kahe we passed through miles and miles 

 of rubber, coffee, and other plantations. It was a glorious 

 though somewhat steamy day after heavy rain. Never in my 

 life have I seen such thousands of butterflies, all appaieutly 

 freshly emerged, as they were in the pink of condition. There 

 was one patch of Fajnlio deviodocas a,bout eighteen inches in 

 diameter and containing about one hundred closely-packed insects 

 feasting on the intestines of a bullock. On a raw buckskin there 

 was a big crowd of blues, and every puddle in the road was 

 surrounded by numbers of them. (Kahe, 17. iii. 16.) 



69. EuRYTELA HiAiiRAS Drury. Came upon a bush to which 

 a number of Cetoniids were clinging; one of these was on the 

 lower side of a horizontal branch, and immediately above him 

 was the Nymphaline E. hiarbas, which was applying its proboscis 

 to a spot of moisture on the twig immediately above the beetle's 

 head ; each time it protruded its proboscis to do so, the beetle 

 relaxed its grip with one of its pro-legs and waved it in the 

 direction of the butterfly ; replacing the leg, it repeated the action 

 with the opposite leg; the object of this was to drive the butterfly 

 away from the exuding sap. Eeturning later I found no fewer 

 than three beetle-butterfly groups, and concluded that the 



Proc. Zool. See— 1923, No LXYII. 67 



