OCR Text |
Show 1891.] FROM SOUTH-WESTERN AFRICA. 71 and reduced to two black lines (the inner one strongly festooned) enclosing seven spots of the ground-colour which are much more elongate than in A. acrita. Cilia white. U N D E R S I D E . - H i n d wing and apical area of fore wing yellowish creamy, but duller than in A. acrita ; and the former with little or no trace of internervular red markings except near base between 1st median nervule and inner margin, ivhile the latter bears a white space fainter than on upper-side. Fore wing : ground-colour redder than in A. acrita. Hind toing : spots more conspicuous than on upperside, none being obsolescent, arranged as in acrita, but all smaller; hind-marginal border as in A. acrita, but much narrower. $ . Like male ; but ground-colour slightly duller, black spots proportionally larger and rounder (especially in hind wing) ; white subapical space in fore wing larger and clearer (extending downward to 2nd median nervule), and bases with a moderate fuscous suffusion. Hind wing: hind-marginal border rather wider than in male, its black bounding lines somewhat thicker. UNDERSIDE,-White space in fore wing better expressed; and internervular red markings in hind wing as in A. acrita, though much fainter. Ehanda (September) and Okavango River (December). One male and one female specimen. I referred to this Acrcea, as a near ally of A. acrita, in ' South- African Butterflies' (vol. iii. p. 382, note) ; and notwithstanding the wide disparity of aspect effected by the broad apical black patch and adjacent white space in the fore wings, the Butterfly stands so near the species named that I am doubtful whether it can be kept separate when more examples are forthcoming. Besides the two specimens taken by Mr. Eriksson, I have received a fine male captured by Mr. F. C. Selous, in 1889, at a point a little S. of the junction of the Chobe and Zambesi rivers; this agrees well with Mr. Eriksson's Ehanda male, but has the black markings rather stronger. The solitary female from the Okavango is probably a dwarfed example, but in colouring it is much brighter than any female of A. acrita that I have seen. The intimate relationship between this form and A. acrita is further shown by' a male Acrcea from Victoria Nyanza in the British Museum, which, although without any white space in the fore wings, presents in most of its markings an approach to the peculiarities of A. ambigua. The antennae in this Acrcea and in A. acrita are remarkable for their length, which is half that of the fore wings, and for their elongate and gradual (instead of abrupt) elevation. 11. ACRCEA STENOBEA, Wallengr. Acrcea stenobea, Wallengr. Wien. ent. Monatsch. 1860, p. 35. n. 9; Trimen, S.-Afr. Butt. i. p. 153. n. 44 [J $ ] , pi. 3. f. 2 [<?](1887). Ehanda (August and September), H u m b e (October), Otiembora (November and December), Okavango River (December), Omar- |