48 
SOUTH-AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 
nervular rings. Fore-iving : a spot in cell, towards extremity ; beneath 
it a similar usually rather larger one ; ordinary disco- cellular lunule 
black with white bordering ; discal row of spots strongly incurved on 
second median nervule; first and second spots of row on costa, respec- 
tively before and about middle, minute but very distinct and rather 
widely apart. Hind-wing : a spot at base ; a transverse row of four 
spots before middle ; disco-cellular closing lunule narrow, of the ground- 
colour, white-bordered ; discal row strongly elbowed on second subcostal 
nervule ; a straight white ray runs longitudinally along radial nervule 
from disco- cellular terminal lunule to row of sagittate marks ; near 
anal angle, two small blackish spots enclosed by lunules of the two 
hind-marginal rows. 
$ Darh-lrown, usually more or less m^arked with violaceous on lower 
^arts of discs and towards hascs. Hind-wing : dusky spots of hind- 
marginal row, as in ^, more or less apparent in violaceous marked 
specimens. Undek side. — Usually a little more brownish than in ^ ; 
the spots even more distinct, and the white ray of hind- wing broader. 
Variety, J and — Under side darker than usual ; the hind-wing 
ivith hasal and discal spots almost obsolete, hut with the white ray very 
broad and conspicuous. One $ example has the violaceous on upper 
side bluer than usual and largely developed. 
Pinetown, Natal ($ W. Morant, 1869; $ [2] J. H 
Bowker, 1879). 
This species is allied to L. Lysimon, but is readily recognised by the much 
more conspicuous spotting of the under side, with the white ray exhibited by 
the hind-wing.^ The male differs also from that of Lysimon in the decided 
pink tinge of the upper side, and the absence of the dusky border of the hind- 
wing. The female has the upper side much darker than in Lysimon, and the 
violaceous colouring is deeper and not so blue in tint. 
This is the butterfly noted in my Rhopalocei^a Africoe Australis (ii. p. 255) 
as probably a " permanent variety" of the female L. Knysna, mihi { = Lysi- 
mon, Hiibn.). At that time (1866) I had not distinguished the male of the 
form, although the female described was taken in copidd by myself at Pletten- 
berg Bay in February 1859, and so a male (probably worn) must have passed 
through my hands. From the Tsomo River, in Kafirland Proper, Colonel 
Bowker forwarded, only a few months later in 1866, a specimen which I could 
not doubt was the male ; and next year, in Natal, I met with several examples 
of both sexes. It was not, however, till 1870 that I found the butterfly pretty 
commonly near Grahamstown, and at Highlands (on 30th January) captured 
the paired sexes. 
There is nothing remarkable in the habits of this little species. It is 
rather sociably disposed, and little groups are found flitting about grassy spots 
on hill-sides. 
^ This white ray, which wholly or in part appears in so many of the European species of 
Lyccena, does not occur in any known South-African representative of the genus except the 
one under notice. In this one, however, it seems to be always present in both sexes, judging 
from thirty-two specimens before me, although in one male it is reduced to a line merely. 
