34 
SOUTH-AFEICAN BUTTERFLIES. 
whicli liave the under side very closely resembling the tints of the 
ground on whicli tliey are in the habit of settling.^ Melanitis Leda 
and M. diversa rest habitually among dead leaves in shady spots, and 
their under side is so coloured and marked as to render it indistinguish- 
able. The female Eronia Leda has a rather bright sulphur-yellow, 
red blotched under side, and it was only when I saw her settle on the 
half-withered leaves of the Erythrina that I even guessed how pro- 
tective this under side was. Similarly, Mrs. Barber wrote to me how 
struck she was with the behaviour of the conspicuous male Fapilio 
Cenea, which twice deliberately selected in her garden, as a resting- 
place during a shower of rain, a shrub whose pale yellow and brown 
seeds and flowers entirely agreed with the colouring of the under side 
of his wings. The shining white under side of lolaus Silas is extremely 
conspicuous in the cabinet, but I was surprised to observe in Natal 
how it escaped notice, in the full noonday sunlight, among the highly 
polished glittering leaves of a shrub the butterfly frequented. 
By far the most elaborate disguise of this kind among butterflies 
is the famous one, first brought prominently to notice by Mr. Wallace, 
of the Indian and Malayan Kallima Inachis and K. FaraleMa, In 
these species of Nym'pludinm^ which on the upper side are deep blue 
and orange, the under side copies with perfect accuracy the withered 
or shrivelled leaves of certain dead trees or bushes, the imitation 
going into such exact details as to reproduce in appearance the minute 
fungi or moulds that grow on the leaves. But this is by no means all 
the extent of the representation, the shape of the wings when the 
insect is at rest not only agreeing generally with that of the leaf, but 
presenting both the elongated apex and the foot-stalk, and the attitude 
assumed both bringing into prominence . those details and concealing 
such parts as the head and antennse, which might impair the complete- 
ness of the deception. It is no wonder to find Mr. Wallace speaking 
of these large and swift butterflies " vanishing " when they settled 
among a cluster of the withered leaves. 
It has been above observed that it is by either the swiftness or the 
irregularity of their flight that butterflies, so conspicuous on the wing, 
evade pursuers ; but there are some remarkable exceptions to this rule. 
Throughout the tropical and sub-tropical regions there occur slow- 
flying, brightly or very distinctly coloured forms, rendered even more 
conspicuous by their lengthened bodies and wings, which seem to 
make no effort whatever to escape or to conceal themselves, but which, 
though usually very numerous in individuals (and sometimes numerous 
in species), and exposing themselves freely in haunts abounding with 
the enemies of butterflies, are evidently exempt, or almost so, from 
^ Junona Cehrene has been observed by Colonel Bowker to be much hunted by a small 
lizard in the Trans-Kei country ; and Mrs. Barber informs me that Pyrameis Cardui is a 
frequent victim among the butterflies with which the Sun-Birds {Nectarinim) feed their 
young. 
