30 



INSECTS OF SAMOA. 



the records of the forms found in each group, and the synonyms that have been 

 used. 



(i) Forms occurring in Tonga 



Hypolimnas thomsoni Butler, 1883, p. 414 (male only, the female is from 



Kandavu, Fiji). 

 Fruhstorfer, 1912, p. 553. 

 Hypolimnas naresi Butler, I.e. 

 Hypolimnas moselyi Butler, I.e. 



Hypolimnas bolina morseleyi ; Fruhstorfer, 1912, p. 553. 



These three " species " of Butler are very similar ; all are of the male- 

 like form, and they are not worth separating in such a variable species as H. 

 holina ; the female f. murrayi Butler, described from a specimen from Kandavu, 

 Fiji, is similar, but differs in the fact that the postdiscal white band on the 

 forewing is obscured by dark suffusion and blue iridescence. Unfortunately 

 the long series of H. bolina females which I collected in Tonga were almost 

 all accidentally destroyed on the way home. Of the few survivors and those 

 in the British Museum, nine females are of the thomsoni form, and fifteen of the 

 pale form, pallescens, or modifications of it. These, however, do not truly 

 represent the forms occurring in Tonga, nor the proportions in which they were 

 to be found at the time of my visit. Fortunately I kept notes of. the proportions 

 between the sexes, and between the different female forms observed. Both 

 f. murrayi and a nerina-ioim. (i.e. a form not unlike H. b. inconstans but much 

 larger) were captured, but both were rare ; except where the specimens were 

 captured, I did not distinguish between f. thomsoni and f. murrayi, both being 

 recorded as male-like, while all forms with a light ground-colour (i.e. f. 

 pallescens and modifications) were called pale. 



In Vavau some dozens of males were seen, but only two females ; these 

 were both of the nerina-ioim, but both pale forms and f. thomsoni from this 

 locality are in the British Museum. Only males were observed in Haapai, 

 and I have seen no females from that locality in collections. In Togatabu both 

 sexes were common ; of sixty-eight females, either captured or seen sufficiently 

 close for their character to be noted beyond doubt, forty-four were male-like, 

 of which only two or three were f . murrayi, twenty-three were pale, and only 

 one was of the nerina-ioim. About two hundred males were seen, so that the 

 proportion of males to females at the time of my visit would be about 3:1. 



