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Show 486 MR. A. G. BUTLEB ON [Nov. 4, In Aden the Catopsilia appear to be very common, thirty-nine specimens being in the present collection. The females separate readily into four types ; but as regards the males I agree with Major Yerbury in admitting that " I have found it very difficult to separate the different Catopsilia.^ They have, however, enlightened me upon one point, which is, that the males of C. pyrene and C. florella (as in many other species of Callidryas) are extremely similar, whilst the females are entirely different; that, consequently, Bois-duval was in error as to the male of the latter species, whilst my friend Trimen was partly right and partly wrong. The male of (?, florella. is indeed white and very like that sex of C. pyrene ; but I have little doubt of its distinctness from that species in Tropical Africa, though in Aden I have every reason to believe that G. pyrene, C. aleurona, and G. florella are one species ; this opinion I base not only upon the fact that all fly together (for that is not conclusive evidence of identity), but from the existence in Aden of a fourth form between G. pyrene and G. aleurona and perfectly intermediate on both surfaces. This intergrade, which I believe to be M . Bois-duval's G. hyblaa described from a Senegalese specimen, resembles G. rufo-sparsa of Madagascar and C. gnoma of India on the upper surface, but on the under surface is only a little yellower than C. pyrene, with similar greyish reticulations and barely a trace of the discal series of spots. If in Tropical Africa G. florella were merely a dimorphic form of the female of C. pyrene, as Mr. Trimen clearly supposed it to be, there is no reason why intergrades between the females should not occur commonly with them there, as at Aden ; yet this is not the case. On the other hand, admitting the distinctness of the two species in Southern and Western Africa, the fact that they are one species in Aden can be explained by the not improbable supposition that the Abyssinian type has steadily migrated in that direction, and, being almost exactly intermediate between the two, has rendered the preservation of a tetramorphic species possible in this case as in that of Limnas chrysippus ; nor in m y opinion is such a supposition at all fanciful in the case of genera which are notorious for the possession of a strong migratory instinct. In the present paper I must necessarily treat the forms of Catopsilia as I have done those of Limnas. 19. CATOPSILIA FLOBELLA. 2 Papilio florella, Fabricius, Syst. Ent. p. 479, n. 159 (1775). Callidryas (Catopsilia) florella, Butler, Monogr. in Lep. Exot. p. 56, pi. xxii. figs. 1, 2, 2 a (1871). 8, Aden, 26th February, 1883; $, 27th March, 8, 14th April, 1884 ; 8, Lahej, 3rd April, 1884. The males are larger than those of C. pyrene, have the primaries more produced, with incurved outer margin rather distinctly spotted with smoky grey; on the under surface also the angular discal subapical streak is tolerably distinct. |
