On the Butterfiies of the Transvaal. 47 VIII. — The Butterflies of the Transvaal. By W. L. Distant. That troublesome region now known as the Transvaal Republic affords little satisfaction to the zoologist who attempts to isolate and describe its fauna. It has no dis-tinctive f'aunistic element, and in zoogeograpliy is merely part of the present somewhat ill-defined and less understood South-African division of the Ethiopian Region. In 1875 Dr. Sclater was inclined to define the South-African division as roughly embracing the *' Cape Colony and adjoining-districts," and as distinct from the South-western and South-eastern divisions. But geographical discovery and coloniza-tion have since then been the means of enlarging our collec-tions and adding to our knowledge of the zoology of this now better known and less dark continent. In I8^i6 Mr. W. L. Sclater, in his series of articles on ''The Geography of Mammals" *, defined the " Cape Subregion " as " including all Africa south of the watershed of the Congo on the West and of the Tana on the East Coast " — a homogeneous area even then none too large, and one which that high authority Dr. P. L. Sclater remarked to the writer might well include Somaliland. If this is true when mammals are studied, it is very evident when the butterflies of Africa are examined, and can be verified by consulting the series of papers which Dr. Butler has contributed to the Zoological Society during the last few years on the Lepidoptera of British East Africa and Somaliland. The Transvaal has almost two butterfly faunas. Tlie desolate plains or veld, typical of tlie best known and most frequented areas, can in no sense be described as an entomo-logical paradise ; but the northern and eastern frontiers, such as the Zoutspanberg and Barberton districts, possess Rho-palocera rich in number and subtropical in facies. A moderate belt of bush or forest extends along the East Coast from Delagoa Bay to and beyond Natal, and this warm forest-region is more or less represented in the East and North-east Transvaal. The first real contribution to a knowledge of the butterflies of the Transvaal was given by the Swedish lepidopterist Pastor H. D. J. Wallengren, who worked out a collection made by N. Person f, and other species have been from time * * Geographical Journal,' vol. vii. p. 262. t " Insecta Transvaaliensia," Gr^tVei-jjigt af ktiug-l. Vetenskaps-Acade-niiens Forhandlingar, 1875, p. 83. This collection, I learn from Dr. Auri-
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