OCR Text |
Show 1893.] BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA. 675 164. DIOSPAGE SCINTILLANS, sp. n. (Plate LX. figs. 12, 13.) Allied to B. rhebus, Cramer, and B. triplacc, Plotz : above black, the primaries brilliantly shot with emerald-green; a broad streak occupying the basal fourth of costa, and three spots beyond it, glittering metallic golden green shaded with golden cupi*eous; a large oval patch of glittering magenta, varying to purple and edged with fiery copper; five nearly equidistant semihyaline opaline white spots, arranged as follows-one within the end of the cell, one beyond the cell, and three submarginal, the central one of which is largest and crosses the second median branch : secondaries brilliantly shot with prussian blue; a small opaline white spot within extremity of discoidal cell and a larger subanal spot; abdominal border clothed with black hairs: head steel-blue; antennae black; thorax greenish black, the collar, patagia, and two transverse bands at back of thorax glittering metallic golden green, varying on the patagia to fiery copper ; abdomen indigo, imperfectly banded with scattered metallic green scales. Wings below brilliantly shot with prussian blue, which shades into green on apical area of primaries and costa of secondaries; discoidal cell of primaries shaded with purple; costa spotted with metallic pale blue-greenish; all white spots as above: palpi black, legs blue-black ; all the tibiae with a conspicuous white patch; the pectus almost entirely covered with metallic steel-green ; abdomen crossed by imperfect bands of the same colour. Expanse of wings 42 millim. Var. Primaries almost as blue as the secondaries; the three golden-green costal spots, which in the typical form follow the basal streak, wanting; the large metallic patch from median vein to inner margin subquadrate, with a central projecting tooth from its outer margin; in colouring also it differs in being of a fiery copper colour, edged with golden copper; the subapical white spot and the spot near external angle wholly absent; secondaries with the costa purplish, no white spot in the cell, and the subanal spot smaller. Expanse of wings 40 miUim. Zomba, July 1892 and January 1893. After seeing this magnificent species I a m quite satisfied that Cramer's B. rhebus is African (not East Indian, as M r . Kirby has concluded, Syn. Cat. p. 169). Cramer says it was received from Coromandel and the coast of Africa; his first locality, not his Second, being unquestionably erroneous. I should undoubtedly have regarded the variety described above as a distinct species, had there not fortunately been an example intermediate between the two forms in the collection. It is probable, I think, that B. triplax of Plotz, which is described as having only three hyaline white spots on the primaries, m a y also vary in a similar manner ; it evidently does not possess the large metallic purplish or cupreous patch, or the smaller metallic golden-green streaks and spots of B. scintillans, in which respect the latter is more nearly allied to B. rhebus. A fourth species, |