198 SOUTH-AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 
This interesting new species I have named after its discoverer, Mr. B. 
Ayres, of Pinetown, in Natal, who took a single male in that locality. Mr. 
W. D. Gooch, who brought th'e specimen to my notice, subsequently took 
another ^ , and also the $ above described, at his farm on the coast of Natal. 
Until April 1883 I saw no further examples of this butterfly; but on the 
23d of that month I received from Colonel Bowker seven specimens just 
captured by him at Pinetown, and he has since forwarded eleven others from 
the same locality. These others were taken in December and January, and 
among them were the paired sexes captured on January i6th. The wings of 
most specimens that had been out for some time were much tattered, which 
Colonel Bowker attributes partly to the insect's pugnacious habit of attacking 
and driving away other butterflies, and partly to the assaults of a large Mantis. 
He describes Ayresii as flying up and down the edge of a wood, at a height of 
from six to ten feet from the ground. 
Localities of Laclinoptera Ayresii. 
I. South Africa. 
E. Natal. 
a. Coast Districts. — D'Urban [Little Umllianga] (TF. D. Gooch). 
Pinetown (B. Ayres and /. H. Boivher). 
Genus PYRAMEIS. 
Pyrameis, Hlibn. (and Vanessa, Hiibn.), Verz. Bek. Schmett., p. 33 (18 16); 
Doubl., Gen. Diurn. Dep., i. p. 202 (1849). 
Cynthia (pars), Fab., "Illig. Mag., vi. p. 281 (1807)." 
Imago. — Head moderately broad, densely hairy ; eyes closely 
covered with fine short hairs ; l^^g? projecting considerably in 
front of head, convergent at tips, — second joint elongated, thickened 
beyond middle, set with long hairs superiorly and outwardly, scaly and 
finely downy beneath, — terminal joint well developed, somewhat flat- 
tened laterally, acuminate, scaly, and slightly downy ; mitennm rather || 
long, with an abruptly- formed, flattened, elongate-ovate club, having 
its terminal joint minute and pointed. , 
Thorax rather long, robust, densely hairy, especially on breast and 
on back of metathorax. Fore-ivings : more or less produced apically, 
and sometimes bluntly angulated at extremity of lower radial nervule ; \ 
costa but slightly arched ; hind-margin moderately sinuate, emarginate 
about middle ; inner margin nearly straight ; costal nervure ending 
about middle of costa ; first and second subcostal nervules arising close a 
together, a little before extremity of discoidal cell, — third at a long | 
distance beyond it, and terminating at apex ; upper disco- cellular 
nervule obsolete, middle one very short and oblique, lower very long, 
but so much atrophied as to be rudimentary only, — its termination 
ing very widely from the c? , and, except for its large size, not unlike the ? of ^ tella Coluin- 
hina (Cram.) In the Collection of the British Museum there are, however, two ? s like 
that mentioned in the text — one from Sierra Leone, and the other from the Gaboon River— 
which to a great extent resemble the ? Harma Althca (Cram.) of the same region. 
