| OCR Text |
Show 1897.] BUTTERFLIES COLLECTED IN NATAL. 837 same -the Karkloof being if anything rather more humid. I would also call your attention to the dry-season examples of A. Induna, A. caldarena, and A. asema." I shall now proceed to give a list of the Butterflies included iu these three consignments, with the dates of their capture and other notes of interest, either taken from the envelopes in which they were forwarded or from Mr. Marshall's letters. The complete references to original descriptions and figures in Mr. Trimen's valuable work ' The Butterflies of South Africa' render it unnecessary, in most cases, to repeat them in the present paper. 1. AMAURIS ECHERIA, Koll. One typical specimen and four of the prevalent Natal form A. alhlmaculata. Malvern, 800 feet, 11th to 16th August *. 2. LIMNAS CHRYSIPPUS, Linn. 2 2 Malvern, 10th and 15th August: Estcourt, 4000 feet, 28th September, 3 3 29th September, 13th October ; Tugela Biver, 2500 feet, 27th October, $ 5th November, 1896. 3. SAMANTA PERSPICUA, Trimen. Malvern, 10th August, 1896 (dry-season form). The single example forwarded does not bear out Mr. Marshall's view that S. slmonsl is the dry form, for it does not differ on the upperside from the typical wet-season form ; Mr. Marshall, however, remarks:-" This specimen is an example of the dry form which prevails along the S.E. coast, the dry form of the interior plateaux being, as I have told you, your S. slmonsi. I have seen dry specimens from the Shire Biver which are iuseparable from the latter on the underside, but retain the brown upperside as iu the southern form." This is all very well, and I will not dispute the probable identity of the two species ; but tbe fact that some dry-season examples of S. perspicua nearly resemble S. slmonsl on the underside does not explain the fact that the latter has the upper surface bright ochre-yellow as in S. eliasis of Western Africa (which is undoubtedly a wet-season form !). 4. YPTHIMA DOLETA. Ypihlma doleta, Kirbv, Proc. Boy. Dubl. Soc. (2) ii. p. 336 (1880). Tpthlma asterope, Trimen (not Klug), South African Butterflies, i. p. (^6 (1887). Estcourt, 4000 feet, 1st and 6th September ; Tugela Biver near Weenen, 2500 feet, 5th and 9th November, 1896. Very great confusion has been made with respect to Y. asterope bv many Lepidopterists. It is an insect strictly confined to Arabia ; for, in my opinion, the small examples from Somaliland 1 Mr. Marshall observes that about 5 per cent, of the specimens he took were typical; the rest were A. albimaculata. |
