BUTTERFLIES OF SAMOA AND SOME NEIGHBOURING ISLAND-GROUPS. 3 



the fact that in several cases the butterflies of Western Samoa (Upolu and Savai'i) 

 show very important differences from their relatives in Tutuila (of which island 

 Pago-Pago is the capital). On the other hand, I have been fortunate enough to 

 capture specimens of several species of butterflies previously unrecorded from 

 Samoa, and to work out a portion of the life-histories (for the most part pre- 

 viously unknown) of many of the species on my list. 



Many measurements of expanse are given in the following notes ; these 

 were a]l taken by measuring the distance from centre of thorax to tip of fore wing 

 and doubling the figure thus found ; many of the measurements given by 

 German authors are approximately half mine, and are evidently the expanse 

 of one forewing only, but the method adopted herein appears to me to be more 

 logical. 



The types of all new forms have been presented to the British Museum, 

 paratypes to the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, and to the Hope Department, 

 Oxford. 



Natural Enemies and Mimicry 



An attempt was made to ascertain the natural enemies of butterflies in 

 Samoa. Ants swarm everywhere, and captive larvae were destroyed by them on 

 several occasions both there and in Tonga, but I am not able to produce any 

 evidence that they attack larvae in nature ; they do not appear to interfere with 

 larvae of Badamia exclamationis, though the bushes on which these latter occur 

 are always overrun with ants. Birds were never observed to capture butter- 

 flies, but that they frequently do so is proved by the fact that specimens of 

 several species (including Danaida melittula, Euploea eleutho hourkei, E. schmeltzi, 

 and Melanitis leda in Samoa, and Euploea eleutho mathewi and Hypolimnas 

 antilope in Tonga) were not uncommonly captured bearing unmistakable beak- 

 marks on their wings (PI. Ill, figs, 1, 2, 3). Specimens with what looked like 

 lizard-injuries were quite common (PI. Ill, figs. 4-7). Spiders undoubtedly take 

 a toll of butterflies, and specimens of Danaida archippus, Danais melittula, 

 Euploea schmeltzi and Hypolimnas inconstans, as well as smaller species, were 

 found in their webs. On one occasion a Pentatomid bug was caught in the act 

 of sucking a larva of Atella exulans. 



I was not able to find any convincing evidence of mimicry in any of the 

 islands visited : Hypolimnas errabunda somewhat resembles Euploea schmeltzi, and 

 some forms of H. pallescens are not unlike Euploea e. matheivi and E. e. bourkei, 



