MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 491 



dull-looking insects of various shades of brown, the wings above and beneath adorned 

 with ocelli, or eye-like spots of various sizes. " The larvte are attenuate at the 

 extremities, terminated by two anal points more or less prominent ; head sometimes 

 rounded, sometimes cmarginate or bifid, or surmounted by two spines. Chrysalis 

 cylindroid, not much angular. Imago; palpi close, elevated, very hairy, body 

 moderate, wings rather robust, abdominal edge of the secondaries forming a groove, 

 discoidal cellule always closed, nervures of the 

 primaries often much dilated at their origin." 

 There are sixty genera and about seven hundred 

 and thirty species, world-wide in their distribu- 

 tion, and generally found in considerable abun- 

 dance. The caterpillars feed a good deal upon 

 grasses, sedges, etc., and cannot be placed among 

 the destructive insects. The tropical forms attain 

 a large size, many of them measuring as much as 

 five or six inches in expanse, though the bulk of 

 the species are only moderate in size. In some 

 South American genera (Cithcerias, Hcetera, and Pierella), the wings are partially or 

 wholly denuded of scales, and have an opalescent reflection. One of the species 

 flcetera esmeralda, is thus alluded to by Mr. Bates : " It has one spot only of opaque 

 coloring on its wings, which is of a violet and rosy hue ; this is the only part visible 

 when the insect is flying low over dead leaves, in the gloomy shades where alone it is 

 found, and it then looks like the wandering petal of a flower." 



Maniola (= Erebia) includes a large number of species, for the most part Euro- 

 pean, which are known as wood-browns, meadow-browns, etc. They are, as these 

 familiar names suggest, for the most part brown in color, the ocelli of various sizes, 

 with the lower side of the wings frequently ornamented with shades and streaks of 

 white. Many of them are mountain insects, being only found at high elevations. 



(Eneis, better known as Ghionobas, is a peculiarly interesting genus, which has 

 the wings generally of a pale, livid, and, as stated by Morris, "diseased color, indi- 

 cating its far northern habitat." They are chiefly lovers of mountains, though perhaps 

 the most beautiful species of the genus, C. iduna, is found in the forests of Mendocino, 

 California, Two or three of them inhabit Labrador, being the most common lepi- 

 dopterous insects of that inhospitable country ; and one very remarkable species, C. 

 argenteus, a native of Chili, has the whole upper surface entirely silvered, looking like 

 a piece of electroplate flashing in the sunshine. (7. semidea has long been a favorite 

 insect with North American entomologists. It is found upon the highest peaks of 

 the White Mountains, New Hampshire, and in a few places on the Rocky Mountains. 

 In some species of Chionobas the ocelli are almost or entirely obsolete. 



Hipparclila and Satyrus are American and European, differing from kindred genera 

 by the shape of the wings, by the neuration, and by other details of structure. II. 

 persephone and If. semele are well-known European species, while H. ridingsii is one 

 of the very interesting forms of our own continent, having its home in the Coloradian 

 portion of the Rocky Mountains. Mycalesis and Ypthima are composed of a number 

 of thin-winged species, in which the ocelli are very large, so much so as at times to 

 appear disproportionate to the size of. the insect, which is rarely more than two inches 

 in expanse. The genera are peculiarly Asiatic and Australian, Y. arctous and M. 

 terminus being among the most common lepidoptera of New Holland. Ccenonympha 



