110 EHOPALOCERA. 



Note on the Group Eumceidi. 

 By Samuel H. Scudder. 



On calling the attention of the Editors of the ' Biologia ' to an inaccurate statement (on 

 p. 5 of the present volume) of my published views regarding the relation of the 

 Eumaeidi to the allied groups of butterflies, they kindly invited me to contribute to it 

 a note upon the systematic position of these insects ; and although I have substantially 

 nothing to add to what has already been published *, I gladly avail myself of their 

 courtesy for a fresh statement of my views. 



The immediate occasion of my interest in this group was the opportunity, through 

 the kindness of friends, of studying their early stages ; and as I was then fresh from a 

 study of the same stages of the different tribes of Lycaeninae, the opportunity of examin- 

 ing the nearly complete history of an allied insect, whose position had been the subject 

 of much doubt, was very welcome. 



It should be premised that I differ from most lepidopterists in regarding the Lemo- 

 niinse (Erycininae) and Lycaeninae as divisions (subfamilies) of one family group, to 

 which I apply the name of Lycaenidae ; and that the above terms are used in that sense 

 in the present note, the termination sufficiently indicating the value of each group-name. 

 My opinion is based on the close affinity of the two groups (never widely sundered by 

 entomologists), on the fact that, so far as we know them, the larvae of Lemoniinae differ 

 less than any others from those of Lycseninse, on the compact form and close girding of 

 the chrysalis of both groups, the triarate or flattened eggs, and on the very general 

 agreement of the two groups in the imago in such important characters as the narrow- 

 ness of the front of the head between the eyes, so that the antennal sockets encroach 

 upon the orbits, the antennal structure, the close union of the mesothorax and meta- 

 thorax, the neuration, and the bent lateral appendages of the upper unpaired organ of 

 the male abdomen. 



That the Eumaeidi belong to the Lycaenidae and not to the Satyrinae, as formerly 

 claimed, is shown by the narrow front of the head, the widely-separated antennae, and 

 the feeble degradation of the male fore tarsi — characters of prime importance found in 

 all Lycaenidae and in no Satyrinse. Now, too, that their early history is known, and 

 the larva is found to have a partially retractile head and an entire terminal segment, 



* " The Structure and Transformations of Eumceus atala," Mem. Boat. Soc. Nat. Hist. ii. pp. 413-419, pi. 14. 

 Boston, 1875. 4to. 



