XVI. The Structuee and Transformations of Eum^us Atala. 



Bt Samuel H. Scudder. 



Read February 17, 1875. 



JL HE insect formiug the subject of this sketch belongs to a small and aberrant group of 

 butterflies, which was first brought to the attention of naturalists when Hiibner, some- 

 where between 1806 and 1819, figured in his Sammlung exotischer Schmetterlinge, a Central 

 American species under the name of Husticus adolescens ll'mijas. Hiibner's views of the 

 affinities of the insect were given only by means of his peculiar trinomial nomenclature, but 

 this indicates that he considered its position to be among the Lyca3nida3 of modern authors. 

 This view was also maintained by him at the publication of the fifth sheet of his Verzeichniss 

 bekannter Schmetterlinge, probably issued in the latter part of ISIS,-" where he places the 

 genus Euma3us, now founded for the sj^ecies Minijas, at the head of his Agrodineti, followed 

 uiimediately by the European blues and preceded by the Oreades, or SatyridtB of modern 

 authors. 



It is not a httle remarkable that this same insect, under a different specific name, Toxea, 

 should have received, by the next author who treats of it, a new generic appellation closely 

 resembling that given by Hiibner. Godart, m the appendix to the Encyclopedic methodique, 

 calls it Eumenia, and considers its place to be between the Brassolidoe and Satyridaj of 

 modern authors. 



Boisduval in his Species general next proposes to place this butterfly, with our species and 

 others which had by this time been added to this genus — all Central American and West 

 Indian forms — in a distinct family to which he applies the Gallic term Eumenides ; and in 

 this he is followed by Doubleday in his List of the British Museum Insects ; but the latter 

 author calls the " family " Eumoeidte,^ and places it between the Erycinidie and LycfenidtB, 

 while Boisduval places it between the Pieridaj and Lyca;nidoe. Guerin, in his Iconographie, 

 on the other hand, places the genus among the Erycinidaj of modern autliors ; and in this 

 he is followed by Lucas in Chenu's Lepidopteres. But most recent authors have returned 

 to the first opinion of Hiibner and classed the genus with the L3'cosnidoB. 



This has resulted doubtless from the careful account of the structural features of the insect 

 given by Westwood in the Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera. Even Boisduval is constrained 

 to take this view in his Lepidopteres de la Guatemala, although he misconceives the affinities 

 of these insects in locating them as he does at the very head of the LycsenidiB, while placing 

 the Pieridte next above them — an arrangement wholly unnatural. In the system adojDted 

 by Westwood they are placed indeed at the head of the LyCcCnida^, but the Eiycinidaj im- 



1 For a discussion of the probable dates of Hiibner's works, - This famil)- name is retained also in the plates of the 



see my Historical Sketch of the Generic Names proposed for Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera. 

 Butterflies. Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts, So., x, 96-8. 



MEMOms BOST. SOO. NAT. HIST. VOL. n. 104 (413) 



