INTRODUCTION. xix 
Baronia have still to be ascertained. The only genera of this subfamily in North 
America are Papilio, with twenty-three species, as against our eighty-four, and 
Parnassius, including four alpine forms; the last-mentioned altogether absent in 
Mexico, but perhaps represented by Baronia. 
HESPERID. 
The Hesperiide are represented by nearly as many species as the Nymphalide, 
Tropical America being especially rich, such a great variety occurring in a very limited 
district that a collector in almost any locality in the low country (except at the height 
of the dry season) may obtain examples of many different forms in a single day’s 
excursion. Upwards of 550 species are here recorded, and possibly double that 
number are to be found on the South-American continent (though many of these 
latter are still unnamed in collections), belonging to three subfamilies—the Pyrrho- 
pygine, the Hesperiine, and the Pamphiline. Of the total, rather more than half 
belong to the Hesperiinz, and the bulk of the others to the Pamphiline, the Pyrrho- 
pygine having only thirty representatives. The Hesperiide, it may be noted, are also 
very numerous in America north of Mexico—178 species (exclusive of giale) being 
recorded (Skinner, 1898), as against forty-six for Kurope in the wide sense (Staudinger, 
1871), and sixty-six for the whole of the Palearctic region (Staudinger and Rebel, 1901). 
The “skippers” have a wider distribution than most butterflies; this may be accounted 
for, no doubt, by their strong powers of flight and their habit of frequenting com- 
paratively open places. A very large number of the species are common to our region 
and the northern part of South America. 
We have already commented on the difficulty of dealing with the members of this 
family, especially with regard to the characters that should be used for generic 
separation, and more particularly in connection with the Pamphiline, the time 
required for the study of these latter having much delayed the completion of our 
enumeration of the Rhopalocera. 
The Pyrrhopygine, a Neotropical group, include the well-known genus Pyrrhopyge 
and its allies, all insects of large size and robust build. Of the nine genera inhabiting 
Central America, one, Pyrrhopyge, reaches a little beyond our northern frontier, 
Mysoria extends to Northern Mexico, Azonar is peculiar to Nicaragua, Amenis and 
Oxynetra occur in Chiriqui, and the others range from South Mexico or Guatemala to 
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