MIMETIC ASSOCIATIONS 



65 



Why this should take place more particularly in East Africa is not very clear, and it would 

 be idle to speculate on the causes, doubtless very complicated, which tend to a better mimetic 

 development in the east than in the west. In spite, however, of their inferior mimetic 

 development the western specimens are quite sufficiently Amauris-like to benefit by the 

 resemblance, and it may be that they show an early stage of the development which has 

 become more perfect in the Entebbe region. 



MELINDA MORGENI. 



Honrath (Elsa morgeni), B. E. Z., xxxvi, p. 436, pi. 15, f. 5 (1892). 

 Karsch, Ent. Nachr., xx, p. 228 (1894). 

 Aurivillius, Rhop. Aeth., p. 33 (1898). 



Plate IV, Fig. 19. 



I am indebted to my friend Dr. Jordan for permission to figure this extraordinary 

 butterfly from an example in the Tring Museum. The specimen figured was taken in 

 Cameroon. As will be seen, the insect resembles an Amauris, coming perhaps nearest to 

 A. hecate. There is a slight chestnut-brown suffusion in the basal area of the fore-wings 

 which is strongly reminiscent of the ground-colour of M. mercedonia. On the underside 

 this chestnut-brown is much more extensive, and reaches nearly to the end of the discoidal 

 cell, and between the submedian and first median it extends to the hind-margin. The 

 precostal area of the hind-wing is also of the same reddish colour. It is noticeable that this 

 presumably ancestral colour is principally found on that area of the underside which is hidden 

 by the hind- wings when the insect is at rest. In this position the butterfly is not distin- 

 guishable from an Amauris. It may, I think, be regarded as a development from an ancestor 

 common to it and to M. mercedonia, as a careful comparison with Fig. 3 on the same plate 

 will tend to suggest. The marginal spots in the hind-wing have disappeared, as have most 

 of those of the submarginal band. The spots above the first median and in the cell are much 

 enlarged, otherwise the insects are very similar except in the ground-colour. It is apparently 

 a very rare species, and the specimens at Tring are the only examples which I have had an 

 opportunity of examining. 



.P. CONSANGUINEA AND P. FULVARIA. 

 PSEUDACRAEA FULVARIA. 



Butler, Cist. Ent., i, p. 214 (1874). 

 Aurivillius, Rhop. Aeth., p. 177 {1898). 



Plate V, Fig. 19 a^. 



I refer the specimen figured on Plate V with some doubt to this species. There are several 

 West African Pseudacraeas which, whilst differing shghtly in small details, are apparently 

 very closely allied. The peculiarity of the example figured is that the reddish bar in the 

 fore- wings is nearly straight, whereas in the tyipe of P. fulvaria it is somewhat angulated. 

 In other respects the specimen agrees well with the type. The female is described by Butler 

 as having a * broad creamy band from costal nervure to just below second median branch 

 where it becomes obsolete, but is represented by a greyish nebula on centre of first median 

 branch, and reappears as a creamy-ochreous patch on inner-margin ; secondaries with 

 the base greyish-ochreous, black-spotted ; a central diffused creamy band from costa to 

 inner-margin, which is ochreous'. The same author makes the suggestion that the species 

 mimics the two sexes of Planema formosa, but this is an error, as the male of the latter 

 has a narrow white discal band in the hind-wings. I have shown at Fig. 18 a male Planema 

 which I received at the same time from the Gold Coast, and which would certainly appear 

 1200 I 



