90 
SOUTH-AFRICA^^ BUTTERFLIES. 
Arabia, to whicli four of them extend ; while three others are common 
to Africa, Arabia, and India. One section {Etricla group) is peculiar 
to India, and one (^Mananhari group) to Madagascar ; while another 
(^Evantlu group) is common and peculiar to those two countries. India 
possesses representatives of six sections and Madagascar of four. Of 
the ninety species here enumerated, fifty-five appear to be peculiar to 
Continental Africa, or sixty-nine to the entire Ethiopian Region, includ- 
ing Arabia and Madagascar, which latter has yielded four endemic 
forms, while nine appear to be limited to Arabia. In South-Africa I 
recognise twenty-nine species, of which five only are not recorded as 
occurring beyond the tropical limit. 
In these statements it must be noted that the numbers can only be 
regarded as generally indicative of the actual distribution. There is, 
perhaps, no genus of butterflies more puzzling to deal with than Tera- 
colus, owing mainly to the multitude of closely- allied forms, the dispa- 
rity in pattern and coloration exhibited by the sexes, and the instability 
of colouring and markings in the females. It is probable that no two 
lepidopterists would even approach agreement in discriminating the 
known species, and the mass of the genus must remain in a very 
unsatisfactory state until careful breeding of successive generations 
from the ova can be systematically applied to its elucidation. Even in 
South- Africa, as far as I can learn, only two or three species have been 
reared from the larva? ; but some little aid has been afforded by the 
record of the capture of the sexes i7i copuld. 
In Mr. Butler's "Revision" in 1876, forty-one South- African 
species were enumerated, and of these nineteen were for the first time 
described. I have had the advantage of examining the types of these 
species in the very large series of Tcracolus contained in the collection 
of the British Museum, and comparing them with my own series from 
South Africa, and arrived at the conclusion that only five of them 
presented characters warranting specific separation from previously 
described forms. 
The beauty of most of these butterflies is very remarkable, espe- 
cially in the $ s, where the brilliantly-tinted tips of the fore-wings, 
usually relieved by black edging, contrasts with a pure-white or pale- 
yellow field. The lone group perhaps carries off* the palm of loveli- 
ness, the lustre of the glittering violet tips (in T. Regina quite metallic) 
being unequalled in any other group, though the intense rich crimson 
of the tips of T. Danae and its near allies is almost equally splendid. 
Bright-red, orange-red, orange, and yellow of various shades are the 
colours that ornament the wing-tips of most of the groups, while the 
Celimene section has an immense purple patch of a lustre inferior only 
to that in the looie section. 
As will be seen, however, in the account of the characters of the 
several sections given above, there are five groups, viz., those of 
Mananhari, Hcdimede, Faicsta, Amata, and Chrysonome, in which the 
