increase was curtailed; but though generally unsuccessful,
I did discover what I believe up to the present to be its
only recorded enemy. This is a moderately large orthopterous
insect [Hemisaga prcedatoria, n. sp.), which I
found lurking among the tops of tall flowering grasses,
to which it has a considerable assimilative resemblance
and which in this case enables it to secure its prey.
The Danais hovers about, or partly settles on, the flowers
and is then secured by the Hemisaga, which, in one
instance, I found dismembering a freshly-caught specimen
*. It is just possible, during the dry season,
when insect-life is very scarce, that some insectivorous
birds may, in a somewhat famished condition, make an
experimental dash at a Danais. At that season I
captured a specimen which was certainly mutilated
as though by the bill of a bird, for the wings were
not bitten symmetrically, as is the case when the
attack takes place by a lizard or mantis, whilst the
butterfly is reposing with its wings vertically closed j\
As is well known, the female of Hypolimnas misippus
is a wonderful mimic of this butterfly. To an experienced
eye the Hypolimnas may be distinguished from
the Danais by its flight; but this is scarcely noticed
without both species are known to be present and
attention is thus directed. So close is the resemblance
that well knowing both insects, I was not aware of the
female Hypolimnas being present with the Danaids till
I observed one in copula, with its dark blue male. A
purely English lepidopterist, not knowing these facts in
mimicry could cross the veld and merely observe that
D. chrysippus was very abundant. But these mimicking
resemblances, by which the female Hypolimnas has found
protection by being mistaken for the uneatable Danais
and avoided accordingly, are even still more complicated.
D. chrysippus has two varietal forms, alcippus, Cram.,
and dorippus, Klug, both of which occur in South
Africa and both of which I found in the Transvaal.
* When in Natal that old lepidopterological veteran, Col. Bowker, informed
me that he had frequently observed the Mantidce to prey on butterflies.
t I am hound to affirm that this view, formerly advocated by my friend
Prof. Meldola, was at the time contested by myself.
P