102 



AFRICAN MIMETIC BUTTERFLIES 



Note. Since the foregoing account was written my attention has been called to a paper by Professor 

 Aurivillius published in 1907, and dealing with some forms of P. dardanus. The principal object of the paper 

 seems to be to give names to several of the intermediate varieties and aberrations of this insect. Any work pub- 

 lished by the eminent Swedish naturalist to whom we owe so comprehensive and valuable a work as the ' Rhopa- 

 locera Aethiopica ', is sure of a welcome from those who, like myself, owe so much to his exemplary labours, and 

 the reason why I have not rewritten this section of my work and inserted the additional names is because it seemed 

 to me that the nomenclature of the forms of P. dardanus has already, from the nature of the case, assumed a 

 complication of such proportions, that my foregoing effort to state the case as concisely as possible would be to 

 some extent defeated were I to add the proposed names for the intermediate varieties. P. dardanus is an extremely 

 unstable species, and this, combined with the possibility of intercrossing of the principal varieties which have 

 become fairly well established, makes the occurrence of intermediate aberrations a frequent possibility. In the 

 Hope Department at Oxford there are many unique forms, and there are two in my own collection of which 

 I have never seen duplicates. Several of these intermediates, including one of my own specimens, have been 

 described (though not named) by Professor Poulton (Trans. Ent. Soc, 1906). Professor Aurivillius's paper contains 

 figures of an intermediate form between trimmi and dionysos, two intergrades from trimeni to hippocoon, a form 

 between hippocoon, trimeni, and cenea, a variety between hippocoon and planemoides, and two hippocoon forms 

 from Ukerewe Island in Lake Victoria Nyanza. A table is also given which includes seventeen varietal names, 

 including those given in the foregoing account. The paper is in the Arkiv fiir Zoologi, Bd. 3, No. 23 (1907), and is 

 published in London by W. Wesley and Son, Strand. 



AN ACCOUNT OF SOME OTHER APPARENT INSTANCES OF MIMICRY NOT 



FIGURED ON THE PLATES 



I have now described a large number of the most striking instances of mimetic association 

 in African butterflies, but the very wide extent to which this phenomenon occurs makes 

 the task of figuring all the known examples one which would require several supplementary 

 plates. Some account, however, of certain further instances may be of service. It has 

 already been noticed that some specimens of the male Euxanthe wakefieldi, Ward, bear 

 a certain resemblance to Tirumala petiverana. I have lately seen a specimen of this species 

 which was taken in company with the Danaine, and in which the ground-colour is much 

 more inclined to brown than to the usual intense black, whilst the green markings are duller, 

 the whole effect being to produce a much closer approach to T. petiverana than in any 

 example which I had previously examined. The existence of this variety convinces me 

 that the species is in fact approaching the Danaine pattern. As so frequently happens, the 

 female has made much greater strides towards the pattern of a protected species. In this 

 sex the markings are all white, and by their concentration in the fore-wings into a more 

 or less well-defined sub-apical bar and a discal patch, and in the hind-wings into a large basal 

 white patch, a very close resemblance to Amauris ochlea is produced. The Rev. K. St. A. 

 Rogers, in his paper in Trans. Ent. Soc, 1908, says that the species when on the wing bears 

 a closer resemblance to the dominicanus type than to ochlea. The same author expresses 

 the opinion that the female Euxanthe tiberius is also a member of the combination, and that, 

 judging from the slowness of their flight and the toughness of the integuments, these species 

 are Miillerian rather than Batesian mimics. 



Many members of the genus Neptis, which are nearly all small black and white butterflies, 

 are accompanied in their flight by species of Neptidopsis, a Eurytelid genus founded by 

 Aurivillius. Thus the common Neptis agatha is frequently accompanied by Neptidopsis 

 ophione, which very closely resembles it, and also by a small black and white day-flying 

 moth of the genus Nyctemera. 



A Nymphalid genus, Pseudathyma, Stand., doubtfully distinguishable from Enptera, 

 contains a species, neptidina, Karsch, which in pattern and markings is almost indistinguish- 



