52 



AFRICAN MIMETIC BUTTERFLIES 



we must conclude that they are more closely allied than was at first supposed. That author 

 gives some interesting facts concerning these butterflies and their models, in his paper in 

 Trans. Ent. Soc, 1906. P. mimeticus is found on the west shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza. 

 It is so rare that its range cannot be very accurately determined, but I know of no other 

 locality where it has yet been proved to occur. In the collection described by Neave there 

 were forty-one examples of M. mercedonia, of which only five were taken on the north-east 

 shore, the remaining thirty-six coming from the north-west, and my own specimens were 

 from the same neighbourhood. On the other hand, P. rex occurs on the Kikuyu Escarpment, 

 well to the east of the lake, and fifty examples of M. formosa were included in the collection 

 which the above author describes, and none of this species occurred on the west. We thus 

 have a very close geographical correspondence between the models and their Papilionine 

 mimics. At Nyangori the two Danaines occur together, and in this region we find the 

 remarkable intermediate form between rex and mimeticus, the female of which is shown 

 on Plate IV, Fig. 7. An examination of the figures will show that there is a better corre- 

 spondence between the female P. rex and the female M . formosa than between their respective 

 males, the deep ochreous basal area in the female fore-wing being larger, and the wings less 

 angulated than in the male. The male of the intermediate form differs from typical rex 

 in having the basal area of the fore-wing of an intermediate shade between the ochre yellow 

 of rex and the chestnut brown of mimeticus. The female mimeticus does not greatly differ 

 in appearance from the male. Just as there is much less difference between the sexes of 

 M. mercedonia than between those of M. formosa, so the male and female P. mimeticus 

 resemble each other more closely than do the two sexes of P. rex. 



T. PETIVERANA AND P. LEONIDAS. 

 TIRUMALA PETIVERANA. 



Doubleday and Hewitson (litnniace). Gen. D. Lep., p. 93, pi. 12, f. i (1847). 

 Butler (leonora), Proc. Zool. Soc, p. 54 (1866). 

 — Lep. Exot., p. 53, pi. 20, f. 2 (1870). 

 Aurivillius, Rhop. Aeth., p. 33 (1908). 



Plate IV, Fig. 8. 



The type form of this butterfly is the limniace of Cramer described from an Asiatic 

 specimen, and in that region the species has very close mimics amongst the Papilionidae 

 and Pieridae. In Africa it has an exceedingly wide range extending from Sierra Leone 

 to British East Africa, and as far north as Abyssinia. It is perhaps rather remarkable that 

 a Danaine with so wide a range should not have a larger number of imitators, though the 

 existence of more conspicuous models may in some degree explain this fact. The only 

 pronounced mimic of the species is P. leonidas, though it has been suggested that the male 

 Euxanthe wakefieldi is an incipient mimic. 



PAPILIO LEONIDAS 



Fabricius, Ent. Syst., iii, i, p. 35 (1793). Aurivillius (ab. interniplaga) , Rhop. Aeth. 



Staudinger, Exot. Schmet., i, p. 10, pi. 6 (1884). p. 487 (1898). 



Cramer (similis), Pap. Exot., p. 14, pi. 9, ff. b, c var. hrasidas. 



(1775). Felder, Verh. z. b. Ges. Wien, xiv, p. 307, &c. 



Oberthiir (ab. pelopidas), ^tud. d'Ent., iv, (1864). 



P- 55. pl- 5. f- I (1879). Aurivillius, Rhop. Aeth., p. 487 (1898). 



Plate IV, Figs, 9, 11. 



Like its model T. petiverana, this butterfly has an extremely wide range, extending 

 from Sierra Leone to British East Africa. It belongs to a characteristic group of Papilios, 



