38 
SOUTH-AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 
Among tlie species tabulated, probably the second, Amauris Eclieria, 
a Danaine of wide distribution in wooded localities, is tbe best protected 
butterfly in South Africa, judging from the number of its imitators. 
The most accurate copyist is the female Fapilio Cenea (type), and the 
smaller specimens of this Fapilio cannot in the field be distinguished 
from the Amauris. It is the variety of A. JEcheria, with all the spots 
of the fore- wing white, which prevails in Kafirland and Natal, that finds 
most imitators, being very closely copied, not only by a slight (white- 
spotted) variation of Fapilio Cenea, but also by the female of Fapilio 
FJcherioides, by individuals of both sexes of Fapilio Frasidas, by both 
sexes of the Nymphaline Eiiralia mima, and by the female of Fsewdacrcea 
Tarquinia. Though the females of Fapilio Cenea and F. Echerioides 
are so much alike in their imitation of A. Echeria as to be indistinguish- 
able on the wing, the males of these species of Fapilio are utterly 
dissimilar both from their respective mates and from each other.'^ 
The case of Fapilio Cenea presents certainly the most remarkable 
mimetic analogy yet recorded among butterflies. The male of this 
species (the Southern representative of P. Merope, Cram., of Western 
Africa) is a very fine conspicuous insect, and has a peculiar colouring 
of very pale creamy-yellow, with a broad black border to the fore- 
wings, and a black band across the disk of the hind-wings, — the latter 
wings bearing each a long broad process or " tail," while the female 
exhibits three quite difierent forms (all with the hind- wings untailed), 
each of which is entirely unlike the male, but imitates with more or 
less exactness one of three prevalent species of South- African Fanainm.^ 
It is observable, too, that numerous intermediate variations of the females 
exist, showing a series of links between the three prominent forms, 
and serving to indicate how plastic for further development the poly- 
morphic female Cenea remains. 
Other circumstances which add to the great interest of the case are 
( I .) that the very closely allied Fapilio Merope of Western Africa also 
has a polymorphic female, several forms of which have been described 
as distinct species, and are imitative of Danaince inhabiting the same 
region ; and (2) that in Madagascar the likewise nearly related Fapilio 
Meriones, Feld., has but one form of female, and that form only slightly 
difiering from the male. Even more surprising is it to find, as I 
learn from Mr. Ch. Oberthlir, that the representative of P. Merope at 
^ The nearest alloy of P. Echerioides is the West-African P. Cynorta, Fab. Curiously 
enough, while the males are very much alike, it is here the females that are totally dis- 
similar ; for while the female Echerioides mimics an Amauris, the female Cynorta ( = P. 
Boisduvallianus, Westm.) exactly copies the female Acrcea Gea, Fab., a butterfly of quite 
different pattern. 
3 The varying females of the mimicking species of Indian and Malayan Papiliones, de- 
scribed by Mr. Wallace [loc. cit.), appear in no case directly to copy moi-e than one pro- 
tected species. But in the remarkable cases of Papilio Memnon and P. Androgens, the 
extreme m.imicking form of the female { = Achates, Cram.) has the hind- wings tailed in 
imitation of the protected model, although the male and less modified females of her own 
species are quite tailless. 
