40 GROTE — SPECIALIZATIONS OF LEPIDOPTEROUS WING. [Jan. 21, 



To resume : Butterflies like Athyma and even Adelpha seem to 

 find their natural place in the Nymphalinse. But^ when we come 

 to the west coast of South America, we find in Megalura a form 

 which shares the taxonomic character of the secondaries with the 

 Nymphalinae, while iii^ of primaries reaches apex. Perhaps here 

 we come upon a fresh phylogenetic line, and the meeting of i, ii 

 and iii of the hind wings at one point is no longer a reliable index 

 of a nearer blood relationship. 



A Strange African Pierid. 



A genus which has reached the grade of specialization of Nathalis, 

 Mancipium and Pontia, and even gone beyond it, is represented by 

 the strange little African butterfly Gonophlebia faradoxa. In his 

 recent work Mr. Renter has classified this butterfly as follows : 

 *' Papiliones : Pierididse : Pseudopontiinse : Pseudopontiidi : Pseu- 

 dopontia." The major clamp in this declensional series — Papiliones 

 — we can at once discard, since no proof has, nor apparently can 

 ever be offered, that the Whites are phylogenetically connected with 

 the Swallowtails. Further, if we may trust Mr. Scudder, the whole 

 series of etymological changes must go by the board, since Pseudo- 

 pontia is a synonym of Gonophlebia. 



Two common butterflies will help us in understanding the vena- 

 tion of Gonophlebia : rJiamni and sinapis. How the veins may be 

 twisted to sustain the new shape of the wing, here assumed very 

 probably under the influence of mimicry, is certainly taught us by 

 rhanini, in which the branches of the radius are bent upward to 

 sustain the expanded costa of primaries. Our strange African 

 butterfly has the veins still more strongly bent out of their normal 

 course to meet the required shape of its funny round wings. In 

 Gonophlebia veins iviand iv.have left the cross vein and spring, one 

 following the other, from the main branch of the radius, vein 

 iiig -|- 4 -[" 5? outside of the closed cell. This is an amplification of 

 the usual Pierine movement of the upper branches of the median 

 system of veins. This, not the whitish color, stamps Gonophlebia 

 as an offshoot of the Pierid stem. Gonophlebia is even more easily 

 recognized as a Pierid than Leptidia sinapsis, in which ivj has not 

 left the cross vein. But, despite the contrasted shape of their 

 wings, it is not impossible that Leptidia and Gonophlebia are 

 isolated survivors of the same phylum. 



The extraordinary movement of the middle branch of the median 



