146 
SOUTH-AFRICAN BUTTERFLIES. 
fine $ , which I captured in the Botanic Garden at D'Urban, on 14th Feb- 
ruary 1867; — it was flitting about the top of a tall shrub, and settling on 
the leaves. The late Mr. M. J. M'Ken took several specimens in the same 
locality, but at long intervals. Colonel Bowker sent three Dermaptera taken 
near D'Urban in August 1873, and in the course of 1879 forwarded in all 
nine others ; but it was not until July 1880 that he discovered a little metro- 
polis of the species at Claremont, near D'Urban, in the shape of a large wild 
fig-tree.^ He wiote at that time : " My attention was attracted to a fine 
specimen sitting with closed wings on the bark of the tree. He was soon 
boxed, and I then looked round for others. You may guess my surprise at 
finding them in great numbers, in all degrees of development, from the little 
twisted-up lump creeping out of the pupa skin to the fully expanded butterfly. 
I secured about fifty, and an equal number must have got away. They were 
most numerous at about a foot from the ground, and the pupae were collected 
together in the hollows of the bark and suspended to a mass of web. I 
send some of this web, which you will see is full of imperfect specimens, bits 
of wings, &c." Colonel I]owker thought that this web was the work of the 
congregated larvae of the butterfly, but it appeared to me to be certainly that 
of a spider ; and he himself added that he found a spider in one part of the 
mass. On the 30th July he further noted that the butterflies were still 
coming out, but not so numerously, and estimated that over a thousand must 
have appeared from the same tree between that date and the 15th of the same 
month. 
Localities of Mi/rina dermaiJtera. I 
1. South Africa. 
E. Natal. 
a. Coast Districts. — D'Urban. 
F. ^'Zululand."— Coll. Brit. Mus. 
Genus APHN^US. 
Aphnceus, Hiibn., Verz. Bek. Schmett,, p. Si (1816); Hewits., Illuat 
Diurn. Lep., p. 60 (1865). 
Amhlypodia \j^^Yt\, Westw., Gen. Diurn. Lep., ii, p. 477 (1852); Trim., 
Bhop. Afr. Aust., ii. p. 226 (1866). 
Spindasis, AVallengr., Lep. Rhop. Caffr.^ in K. Sv. Vet.-Akad. Handl., p. 45 
(1857). 
Imago. — Head of moderate size ; ei/es smooth ; 2^^h^'^ moderately 
long, separated throughout, divergent, ascendant, densely and compactly 
clothed with scales, — the second joint not rising quite to level of summit 
of eyes, — terminal joint shorter than in lolaus or Hypolycoena, not very 
slender ; antcnnce of moderate length, rather thick (less so than in 
lolaus)^ very gradually incrassated from rather before their middle. 
Thorax robust, proportionally more so than in lolaus^ well clothed 
with silky down. Fore-ivings apically acute and subapically somewhat 
convex in the ^, but blunter and sub-truncate in the $ ; costa very 
slightly arched near base, and thence almost straight ; costal nervure 
1 Mr. T. Ayres, in the list furnished by him of a collection of South-African insects, 
mentions his having reared Dermajntera from the pupa found near D'Urban, ** at the foot of 
a banyan fig-tree." 
