80 NOVITATES ZOOLOGICAE XXXIX. 1933. ON SOME AETHIOPIAN ARCTIIDAE (LEPID.). By dr. KARL JORDAN, F.R.S. (With 11 text-figures.) THERE are in tropical Africa a number of species of Arctiids which recall by their black-dotted white wings the European Spilosoma lubricipeda L. 1758. They are distributed in Hampson, Lep. Phnl. iii (1901) and Sxippl. ii. (1920), among the genera Diacrisia (in 1920 replaced by Spilosoma, which ia younger than Diacrisia), Estigmene and Amsacta. The authors of the species have generally relied on some differences in the number of spots. A cursory examination of a series of specimens proved (1) that the maculation is very variable within the species, and (2) that specimens agreeing in colour and pattern may be quite different in the (J-genitalia and therefore belong to different species. As none of the authors who described and named the various " species " have compared the tail-ends, a re-examination of the species-types is a necessity. It is the object of the present paper to supply a future monographer of the Arctiids with descriptions and sketches of the genitalia of some of the types to which I have had access. No revision of the genera in question is intended, nor have I seen all the described black-dotted white African species of Diacrisia (s. lat., Hampson). Besides the types in the Tring Museum and some in the British Museum, I have examined some of Bartel's types which Professor M. Hering very kindly sent me. I. SPILOSOMA (Hampson, I.e. iii, p. 256, as Diacrisia). Foretibia without apical claw ; hindtibia with two pairs of spurs.— —The apex of the foretibia is not truncate, but subdorsally somewhat emarginate, there being a short projection dorsally and another laterally corresponding to the " claws " of Estigmene, Amsacta and Hyphantria. The presence or absence of the proximal pair of spurs on the hindtibia is not really of generic value in this case, as is proved by Spilosoma affinis Rothsch. 1910. Hampson had already noticed in Amsacta that this distinction did not hold good in some species. In the species here dealt with the eighth tergite of the ^J (VIII. t.) has either a more or less distinct median tooth or a sharp tooth on each side at some distance from the middle ; the eighth sternite is medianly depressed and the median portion of the apical margin is curved upwards, the angles of this turned-up lobe often being tooth-like. The anal tergite (X. t.) is sharply pointed, the apical portion, viewed from above, being pyriform ; the median line is raised, and the tip slightly curved down. The pleural clasping organs consist of a pair of long valves, one valve each side, of which the apical portion is divided into two broad lobes, more or less spatulate, the apical lobe being marked P' in our figures and the subapical lobe P' ; P' is always simple, at the most faintly emarginate at the apex, whereas P" is divided into two lobes in two of the species, being in one of these divided in the left valve and not divided in the right ; in most cases P^ is more strongly curved inward-dorsad than P' ; both lobes are individually variable in length, width and curvature, the two valves showing frequently
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