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Show 1896.] FROM NYASA-LAND. 835 one male: it is the dry-season form of T. aurlgineus, and until this collection came to hand was only represented by the typical male example from Kilima-njaro in the Museum series ; nor have I seen it in any other collection. 91. TERACOLUS OPALESCENS. 2. Teracolus opalescens, Butler, Ent. Month. Mag. xxiii. p. 30 (1886); 6*. P.Z.S. 1896, p. 125. o*. Dry-season form. On the upper surface this only differs from the male of the wet-season form in the absence of the black marginal spots to the secondaries; on the under surface, however, it differs in having the apical area and costal margin of the primaries and whole surface of secondaries flesh-pink, tinted on the costal borders and internervular folds with ochreous ; the disc of the secondaries crossed by a series of brown dots. Expanse of wings 51 millim. Bangara, W . coast of Lake Nyasa, August 18th, 1895. "If once missed, is exceedingly difficult to take " (R. ft). The arrival of this example is particularly interesting to me, for it shows that m y belief in the local constancy of some of the named forms of the T. eris group is, so far, borne out, the seasonal forms of this Eastern and Central African type being both easily separable from the more southern examples. The type of T. eris was obtained at Ambukohl, in Lower Nubia, and is probably the true male of m y T. abyssinicas, of which we only possess females : the figure agrees most closely with a male (wet-season form) received from Kilima-njaro, the orange apical spots on the primaries being short, the outer edge of the upper portion of the white area, beyond the cell, less oblique than iu the southern forms, or than in T. opalescens, and the black costal belt of the secondaries extending on the disc to below the second subcostal branch ; it, however, differs in having a small white spot near centre of outer margin of primaries, a character which may be variable. The southern forms are certainly not typical T. eris; nor can T. johnstoni be correctly called the dry-season form of the Natal examples presented to us by Mr. E. C. Buxton, inasmuch as the latter have the under surface of the wings pink, and must therefore themselves be the dry-season form of Mr. Trimen's T. eris (of which he says: " Underside- Whitish or yellowish-white") and identical with his variety A.. If, then, certain Lepidopterists prefer to regard the representative forms of T. eris as mere local phases of one species, the fact that each of them has its drv- and wet-season forms distinct from the others gives them at least a claim to be regarded as subspecies and to retain distinctive names. 92. TERACOLUS SUBFASCIATUS. 6. Teracolus subfasciatus, Swainson, 111. 2nd ser. iii. pl. 115 (1833). o*, Mweniwandas, Nyasa to Tanganyika plateau, Dec. 15th, 1895. (Dry-season form.) |
