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Show 1894.] MANICA, SOUTH-EAST AFRICA. 15 tract from the pen of my friend Mr. Selous. It will probably be new to many who are well acquainted with his name as an explorer, a hunter, and a pioneer, to learn that M r . Selous has not by any means restricted himself to large game, but has for many years kept an eye upon such " small deer " as the entomologist loves. Prom time to time I have had the pleasure of recording many specimens of his collecting, but the highlands of the South-African Interior generally are poor in L«pidoptera ; and it was not until the beginning of last year that Mr. Selous found himself at the best season in an exceptionally rich field, and with characteristic energy set to work to make the most of the opportunity. To construct iu the brief space of three months from 60 to 70 miles of waggon-road in Tropical Africa, with raw Mashuna labour and very scant European superintendence, and in the height of summer, is a task well calculated to tax to their utmost the powers of any man, however inured to such exertions ; and it is amazing how Mr. Selous found both time and strength enough to form such a fine entomological collection and to note locality and date for every specimen. Mr. Selous writes as follows :- " I reached Umtali from Salisbury at the end of January, 1892, at the height of the rainy season, having been sent down by the British South Africa Company to construct a road from Umtali to Chimoia's Kraal. This work occupied m e for three months-the three best months of the year, as it happened, for collecting insects-and during that period I devoted every spare hour of every single day to the diligent collecting of Butterflies and Beetles \ " I commenced to collect immediately upon leaving Umtali township. Umtali lies at a height of about 3800 feet above the sea-level in an open grassy valley surrounded by hills. The river Umtali flows just below the township. Beyond this river the road lies through an open grassy country to the foot of Christmas Pass, and then at once commences to ascend to the top of the Pass through shady cuttings bordering swift-running little streams shaded by trees and ferns. The hill-sides are all covered with open forest. Although all the conditions seemed so favourable for mineni (p. 72) is in my.opinion the Ceratrichia stettata of Mabille; and Pani-phila zirnhazo (p. 74) is PamphUa ranoha of Westwood (which is a species of Osmodes). In Plate IV. m y Periplysia johnstoni is figured as Physcmneura pione of Godinan (this identification is, I think, correct; the genus Physcceneura being new to me), but Mr. Godtnan's figure is somewhat heavily coloured, and thus I failed to remember it. Mr. Trimen and I have both figured the male, Godman the female. Mr. Trimen, on the same Plate, figures Precis simia, Wallengr., which appears to m e to be the insect described by m e some years ago as Junonia micromera (Ann. & Mag, Nat. Hist. ser. 4, xviii. p. 482), but this name is not quoted as a synonym, either in this paper or in Mr. Trimen's work on South African Butterflies."-ED. 1 M y colleague, Mr. Louis Peringuey, has mounted and arranged the Ooleoptera collected by Mr. Selous. He finds 166 species, represented by 510 examples, and provisionally recognizes 15 species as probably new to science. |