OCR Text |
Show 1884.] LEPIDOPTERA FROM ADEN. 489 secondaries in the male have no marginal spots, and that in the female these spots are very small. Major Yerbury, however, sends the following note, which argues in favour of the existence of more than one species here ; if by breeding he can prove this to be the case, I shall not be at all distressed, though certainly surprised thereby. He says : - " I fancy there are three distinct insects under these two numbers (attached to specimens indicated under T. pleione and var.)-first, the ordinary common male with the white female; second, the yellow females (the males I have taken in coitu with yellow females seem to have the orange coming down lower on the hind wing) ; and third, the males of a brighter, richer colour-these are so conspicuous that one notices them at once when on the wing. I have raised one or two caterpillars ; there certainly are at least two different sorts of caterpillars to be found on plant no. 23 (Cleome, n. sp. ?). Only T. pleione resulted, but, at the time when I raised these caterpillars, I only had one breeding-glass, so could not tell what turned to what." I may note that a small male T. acaste "from chrysalis" was labelled with the same number as T. pleione. A female T. miriam was also taken in coitu with T. pleione, 8 • 25. TERACOLUS COELESTIS. Teracolus ccelestis, Swinhoe, P. Z.S.I884, p.435,pi.xxxix.figs. 1, 2. cf 2 , 6th January, $ , 23rd January, 1884; cf, 2nd March, 1883 ; 2, 12th, and 8 2, 27th March, cf, 10th April; Lahej, 6th April, 1884. Either this species is extremely variable or it hybridizes with T. acaste of Klug, and thus produces intergrades to that species ; in the absence of direct evidence I am inclined to think the latter to be the case. In his recent paper on Teracolus, Col. Swinhoe regarded the white females as albino varieties of his T. coelestis, and could not be persuaded to believe that they were represented by Klug's figures; yet these figures, though a little too black, are reallv not bad, whereas the figures of T. pleione are not at all like anything we have ever seen, and nevertheless Col. Swinhoe did not hesitate to agree with me that they were intended to represent the Aden species. Between T. ccelestis, then, and T. acaste we have two intergrades, both of them smaller in both sexes than T. ccelestis. The first of these has the outer border of the primaries in both sexes broader than in T. ccelestis, and the upper surface, especially of the secondaries in the female, of a paler sulphur-yellow: this I shall regard as a simple variety of T. coelestis reduced in size and colour by crossing with T. acaste. The second intergrade differs but little in the male sex from that last mentioned, excepting that the blackish border is narrower and tapers more towards the external angle1; the females, however, have lost the yellow colouring (or rather, if my view be correct, have not acquired it), only the diffused pale orange 1 I should have found it difficult to decide which were the males of this form, had they not fortunately been taken in coitu with the females. |