ENTOMOLOGY. 333 
peculiar part of Africa. It possesses, of course, all those 
wide-spread Ethiopian types which inhabit every part of 
the region ; but it has hardly any special features of its 
own. The few genera which are peculiar to it have gener- 
ally a limited range, and for the most part belong either 
to the isolated mountain-plateau of Abyssinia, which is 
almost as much Polar-Arctic as Ethiopian, or to the woody 
districts of Mozambique, where the fauna has more of a West 
or South African character." Surely these circumstances, if 
correctly stated, together with the fact connected with the 
existence of the Great Sahara desert, extending many 
hundred miles wide across Africa, lead to the conclusion 
that the division of Africa south of the tropic of Cancer 
into three principal areas is unnatural, and that, with the 
exception of the necessary consequence of greater life- 
action within the tropics, there is so much uniformity in 
the animal productions of Africa as to render it (with our 
present knowledge at least) undesirable to cut up the 
continent into these sub-regions. 
Order LEPIDOPTERA. 
The Lepidopterous insects (butterflies and moths) espe- 
cially attracted much of the attention of Mr. Oates ; and 
of the day-flying species (Rhopalocera) he collected seventy- 
three different kinds, of which nineteen appear to be pre- 
viously undescribed. As they form the most important 
part of his collection, I have given a complete catalogue 
of them in the following pages. These insects abound 
in certain districts, and in Mr. Trimen's work on South 
African butterflies, as many as 226 different species are 
recorded. 
Species of the families Danaidae, Satyridae, Acraeidae, 
Nymphalidae, Lycaenidae, Pieridae, Papilionidae, and Hes- 
periidac occur in each of the three divisions into which 
Mr. Wallace has divided the continent south of the Great 
Desert ; but of the families Elymniidae, Libytheidae, and 
Ncmeobiidae no species have been found in the South 
