348 
SOUTH-AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 
glistening^ with white transverse stripes. Fore-wing : white band pure 
and conspicuous, continued narrowly to submedian nervure ; outer row 
of spots conspicuous, particularly the lower two ; hind-margin stained 
with dull-yellow near anal angle. Hind-iving : median stripe white, 
though not so brilliant as that of fore-wing ; heyond band, and near 
inner-margin hefore it, a silver-grey tint ; violet spots more lustrous 
than in $ ; dull-yellow lunular streak beyond them more apparent, and 
green-tinted at anal angle. 
This grand Charaxes inhabits the woods of the Cape Colony and of 
Kaffraria Proper as far eastward as the Bashee River. In Natal it is 
replaced by the closely-allied C. Cithoeron, Feld., which does not as yet appear 
to have been taken elsewhere. The actual district in Kaffraria where 
Xiphares gives place to Cithoeron is not known. 
At Knysna and Plettenberg Bay I met with C. Xiphares not uncommonly 
from the middle of December until the middle of May. Both sexes haunt 
by preference the outskirts of woods, seeming to delight in short flights of 
great velocity over open spaces, ending in a return to the tree stem or pro- 
jecting twig they have quitted. The moist exudations on the trunks and 
branches always attract this butterfly, and I have frequently seen three or 
four specimens together busily engaged in drinking at one of these supplies 
of moisture. I have more than once disturbed a $ at rest on quite a low 
bush, but the $ , though occasionally descending to within a few feet of the 
ground, never appears to settle except at a considerable height. Mrs. Barber 
has often observed the 9 highlands near Grahamstown — and I noticed 
examples there and at Mitford Park in 1870 — but singularly enough has 
never seen the $ on the wing. Colonel Bowker, who forwarded several fine 
examples of both sexes from Kaffraria Proper, noted the species as " rare " 
on the Bashee River. Mr. W. C. Scully, who has lately (1885) observed the 
species in woods near Seymour (Eland's Post), found that a large number of 
these butterflies were attracted by the sap exuding from a climbing composite 
shrub, the stem of which he had wounded for the purpose. 
Localities of Charaxes Xiphares. 
I. South Africa. 
B. Cape Colony. 
a. Western Districts. — Knysna. Plettenberg Bay. 
h. Eastern Districts. — Grahamstown. Eland's Post, Stockenstrom 
(J. H. Boivker). 
D. Kaffraria Proper. Bashee and Tsomo Rivers {J. H. Bowker). 
