56 



INSECTS OF SAMOA. 



L. 'platissa H. S., but the latter race was described from a specimen from Rock- 

 hampton, Queensland, and differs in many respects from both C. caledonica 

 and the present race. 



Very common on the coast of all the islands of Western Samoa, and in 

 Tutuila, wherever the food-plant occurs ; not found inland, and never very 

 far from the food-plant. The species was not common in Tonga at the time 

 of my visit, and the only specimens seen were in Togatabu. Buxton saw a 

 specimen of what he believed to be this species on Nukufetau, Ellice group, but 

 did not succeed in catching it. It is widespread in the Pacific outside our area, 

 and the local races are usually not very distinct. 



The larva is green, with a white lateral hue, and interrupted white lines 

 on each side of the brown mid-dorsal line ; head brown, legs and prolegs very 

 pale brown. It feeds on Desmoclium umbellatum D. C. (Leguminosae), a common 

 bush with white flowers, and eats only the flowers, refusing leaves even when 

 starving. 



Pupa buff, with pale brown freckling, very like that of Z. labradus ; it is 

 fastened by a silken thread to a leaf of the food-plant. 



24. Nacaduba vitiensis samoensis (Druce). 

 Nacaduba samoensis Druce, p. 437, PI. XXVII, figs. 5 and 6. 

 Waterhouse, 1904, p. 494. 

 Rebel, 1910, p. 421. 



Nacaduba samoaensis ; Swezey, 1921, p. 604. 

 Nacaduba berenice samoensis ; Fruhstorfer, 1923, p. 919. 



In a very long series of this insect, chiefly from Upolu Island, variation is 

 considerable, and several of the distinctions between it and typical N. v. vitiensis 

 break down ; the upperside of the male is usually of a darker blue than in the 

 latter form, but varies much in shade, as also does the blue marking of the 

 female, which is sometimes quite as extensive as in N. v. vitiensis. The best point 

 of distinction between the two forms is in the ocelli at the anal angle of the 

 hindwing on the underside, which are never so large in N. vitiensis samoensis 

 as in A r . v. vitiensis ; moreover, in the former the metallic scaling around the 

 ocelli is usually blue, though occasionally greenish as in N. v. vitiensis, and the 

 yellow ring which always surrounds them in N. v. vitiensis is obsolete or nearly 

 so in all but four of the sixty-three specimens of N. vitiensis samoensis that I 



