BIOLOGIA CENTRALI-AMERICANA. 



ZOOLOGIA. 



Class INSECTA. 

 Order LEPIDOPTERA. 



Suborder RHOPALOCERA. 

 Pam. LYC-ENID^. 



Though the species of Lycsenidee are exceedingly numerous in the New World, their 

 number probably being not far short of those of all the rest of the world put together, 

 they do not present anything like the same amount of diversity as regards their 



structure. 



The comprehensive genus Thecla as understood in its wide sense includes nearly all 

 the neotropical Lycsenidae. Lycama, by which we mean the Blues (Cwpido of Kirby's 

 catalogue), is represented by a few species only, and there are some aberrant forms to 

 which we refer below. As in the case of the Erycinidae, we have prepared a large 

 number of specimens for microscopical examination, and from these we have examined 

 the neuration of the wings, the legs, the labial palpi, and the secondary sexual organs, 

 and from the unprepared specimens the form of the wings, the antennae, and the 

 arrangement of the frontal scales ; and from the characters found we have built 

 up the arrangement which follows. We now briefly discuss them seriatim. 



The antennae. — The form of the club in the antennae in Thecla is variable, being as a 

 ruleless prominent in those species which we have placed at the beginning of the genus 

 than in those which come towards the end. The number of joints, too, also varies; 

 in T. regalis we count 39, in T. herodotus only 29, other species have intermediate 

 numbers ; Lyccena acmon has 31. In Thecla and its allies a few spines are scattered 

 amongst the scales of all the joints, but in Lycama we do not notice any. 



The palpi.— The third or terminal joint of the palpi varies greatly in the different 

 species and very often in the sexes of the same species, being longer in the female than 



biol. centk.-amee., Khopal., Vol. II., May 1887. b 



