12 RHOPALOCERA. 
the wings being less elongated, and the yellow spots at the apex of the secondaries 
well defined, show a stronger relationship to 7. hecalesina, Felder, and its allies. 
We have been for a long time disposed to consider the more northern representa- 
tives of 7. irene as incomplete races of that insect; but a further examination of the 
subject with additional materials reveals the fact that an apparently well-marked race 
inhabits Costa Rica, and another Guatemala and San Salvador. These we have described 
above under distinct names, and given their differential characters. We are at the same 
time aware that the subject of the variation of the 7. harmonia group of this genus is 
by no means well worked out; but we think that whatever course is taken with the 
various forms of the southern butterfly, 7. irene will be kept distinct from 7. harmonia. 
We have figured the type of T. umbratilis from Panama. 
MELINA. 
Melinea, Hiibner, Verz. bek. Schmett. p. 11 (1816), partim; Bates, Trans. Linn. Soc. xxii. p. 549 
(1862). 
Femur of front legs of male half the length of the coxa, tibia and tarsus together not 
longer than the femur; pencil of hair on costal area of secondaries in two patches. 
Mr. Bates was the first to define the proper limits of the genus Melinwa, which by 
all previous writers and by some subsequent ones has been confounded with Mechanitis, 
from which it differs in several important particulars, to which attention is drawn in 
Mr. Bates’s paper. The number of known species of the genus is about thirty, which 
are distributed over the whole of the tropical portions of the South-American con- 
tinent, the greater number of species being found throughout the region of the Upper 
Amazon and eastern slopes.of the Andes. Four species are included within our limits, 
one of which, however, is barely of specific value. 
1. Melingzea scylax. (Tab. II. fig. 12.) 
Melinea scylax, Salv. Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 4, vil. p. 412°; Butl. & Druce, P. Z.S. 1874, 
p. 335°. 
Melinea ribbei, Weym. Stett. ent. Zeit. 1875, p. 379, t. 2. f. 4°; Staud. Verh. z.-b. Ges. Wien, 
Xxv. p. 97°. 
Alarum anticarum dimidio apicali nigro, fascia obliqua, maculis tribus apicalibus et una in angulo anali flavis, 
dimidio basali fulvo, macula discali nigra; posticis fulvis margine externo anguste nigro: subtus pagina 
superiore concolori, posticarum basi flava. 
Hab. Costa Rica (Van Patten”); Panama, Chiriqui (Arcé', Ribbe?, Zahn). 
Of this distinct species specimens were first sent us from the neighbourhood of 
Chiriqui, about the year 1870, both by Arcé and Zahn; and from the same district 
Herr Ribbe appears to have found it in ‘some abundance a few years later®4, 
Specimens were contained in Van Patten’s collection from Costa Rica”, which country 
seems to be the northern limit of the range of this species. Its most obvious 
