140 
SOUTH-AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 
streak, edged on both sides by a linear series of small wliite marks, 
which, on the anterior segments (two to five) are developed into thin 
transverse strise ; a similar series of minute white spots bounds lower 
edge of livid-purplish on each side ; below this, each side is olive- 
greenish ; under side and pro-legs light-green ; head black, shining, 
striped frontally, superiorly, and laterally with white ; legs pale- 
greenish, yellowish terminally. Dorsal spines on third to sixth seg- 
ments considerably longer than the rest, erect, nearly straight, rather 
thick, with only a terminal bristle, dull-greyish ; other spines through- 
out yellowish or greenish- white, set with a few whitish bristles ; the 
dorsal ones inclining backward from the ninth to the anal segments. 
Length in. Feeds on ; the very young larvae, 
according to Colonel Bowker, advancing in a regular row, side by side, 
from the base of a leaf, eating away the parenchyma as they proceed. 
Pupa. — Pale orange-yellow. Two dorsal rows of bright orange 
black-ringed acute tubercalated spots, and on each " side a row of 
similar (but not tuberculated) spots, mark the abdominal segments, 
some of the incisions of which are dorsally thinly defined with black. 
Neuration of wings, and a median stripe along back of thorax, and 
head black ; eyes and lines of antennae and limbs also edged with 
black. Rather more curved than usual in Acrcea pupae ; back of 
thorax very prominent, its lateral angles prominent ; cephalic tubercles 
rather acutely pointed. Length -J- in. 
(Colonel Bowker informed me as to the ground-colour of the pupa, 
which was much altered in the spirit specimens sent, and scarcely 
indicated in the single empty pupa skin previously received.) 
A. Cerasa has much the look of an undersized A. Horta (Linn.), especially 
in the deep-red colour, the spotting of the hind-wing, and the fuscous bases of 
the wings. In the pattern of the spotting of the fore- wing it more resembles 
A. Neohule, Doubl. The colouring of the abdomen is intermediate in char- 
acter, the lateral and terminal rufous being much more pronounced and 
developed than in Horta, but less so (and much deeper in hue) than in 
Neohule. From both species the absence of any black, pale, spotted hind- 
marginal border in the hind-wing at once separates Cerasa. Perhaps Cerasa^s 
nearest ally is A. Quirina (Fab.), from Tro^^ical Western Africa; but the latter 
differs very markedly in having the entire fore-wing transparent, with only a 
faint reddish tinge over the inner-marginal area, and in presenting a broad, 
even, well-defined hind-marginal transparent border in the hind-wing, interiorly 
bounded by a series of six small black spots. 
Ihitil 1883 this Acrcea was only known to me by the type (a ) in the 
Hewitson Collection, and I felt some doubt whether it was more than a 
dwarfed aberration of A. Neohule ; but Colonel Bowker changed the aspect of 
affairs by sending me two ^ s, taken on 2d April of that year near Pinetown 
in Natal. Others were met with by him in the same locality during April, 
May, and October 1883 ; and in January 1884 a $ was reared from a larva 
found in the verandah of the house. In the following March Colonel Bowker 
discovered the larvae on their food-plant, and sent me full-grown specimens (as 
well as some pupse in spirit) in the May ensuing, followed in June by more of 
the perfect insect. Among twenty-four examples received, only four were 
females, one of these being of the unusually large expanse of 2\ inches. 
