OCR Text |
Show 1814.] MANICA, SOUTH-EAST AFRICA. 81 to find two, three, four, or all five spots wanting or but faintly indicated. In the exception from the Mineni Valley, four of these spots are reduced to mere dots and the fifth is wanting altogether. Genus HESPERIA, Fabr. 161. HESPERIA FORESTAN (Cram.). Papilio forestall, Cram. Pap. Exot. iv. t. cccxci. figs. E, F (1782). One specimen from Christmas Pass (27th February) and another from the Mineni Valley (27th March). 162. HESPERIA UNICOLOR (Mab.). Ismene unicolor, Mab. Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. (5) vii. p. xxxix. n. 47 (1887); Bull. Soc. Zool. Fr. 1877, p. 230. Two examples: a male, in good order, captured at Christmas Pass on the 20fch February, and an apparent female, very much damaged, near the Vunduzi Fiver on 12th April. The few specimens of this singularly dull-tinted species that have come under my notice were from Delagoa Bay and from Durban, Natal. Mabille's descriptions were from Congo examples. Genus ABANTIS, Hopff. 163. ABANTIS ZAMBESINA (Westw.). 3. Hesperia (Oxynetra) zambesina, Westw. Thes. Ent. Oxon. p. 183, pi. xxxiv. fig. 9 (1874). Eight males: seven from Mineni Valley (13th to 29th March), and one from Vunduzi Fiver (6th April). This beautiful Hesperid is noted as not numerous, and always in open country ; it was mostly captured while drinking at the water's edge, but some were found on the tall spikes of blue flowers already mentioned as the haunt of several Lyccenidce and Hesperiidce. I have not yet seen the female of this species, which is still rare in collections. In addition to the species above mentioned, there are two forms of Mycalesis which I cannot with certainty refer to any described species without comparison with the types, but wiiich I believe to be assignable to the species hereunder named. 164. ? MYCALESIS CAMPA, Karsch. 3. Mycalesis campa, Karsch, Berl. ent. Zeitschr. xxxi. p. 206, t. v. fig. 4 (1893). This species belongs to the safitza group, but is distinguished by the rather acute angulation of the common pale postmedian transverse streak of the underside in both fore and hind wings on the 3rd median nervule. Two examples taken by Mr. Selous in Christmas Pass on 16th PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1894, No. VI. 6 |