154 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST S ItliCORD. 



Ageronia, or such a sound as we can hear everywhere where Endrosa 

 fly. Now, at about the same time that Dr. Reverdin first noticed the 

 Godman-and-Salvin organ in Ageronia, I remarked it in Pendrowia, 

 and we exchanged correspondence on the subject. I had only four 

 different Peridrotnia species to examine, and, in all four, Dr. Reverdin's 

 organ was much in evidence. Now Dr. Longstafi' notes that Aijaonia 

 only emits the crackling sound when on the wing. This is just what 

 one remarks in Kndrom ; I have often noticed that Endrona aurita ^ 

 makes its presence known by a loud tic-tic repeated about 70 times 

 in a minute. This cracking noise is so loud that I have heard it when 

 the moth was fully six yards away from me, possibly farther. I have 

 on the microscope before me the big drum or sounding board of 

 E. anrita, a chitinous plate connected with the thorax and the root of 

 the femur of the moth's hind leg. I have also before me a similar part 

 •of the thorax of Atjeronia arethttaa, and of Feridnnnia am pJdnome Q,Xidi oi 

 P. arinoine. These three butterflies have no such inflated plates as 

 that which Endrosa possesses, but they are provided with hard 

 chitonous plates which should be certainly capable of producing a 

 cracking sound. Now if this sound were produced by my friend Dr. 

 Reverdin's organ, it would obviously be more natural that the 

 butterfly should produce it when settled, for then the extension and 

 retraction of the last segment would be most facile. We are told that 

 the sound is never produced during flight. The conclusion is obvious, 

 the crackling sound produced by ^^7('ro»/a = the ticking sound produced 

 by Endrosa. Either many ages must have elapsed before the Aneronia- 

 Peridromia or the. y»r<iurt-«»rflr/ organs could have reached their actual 

 degree of development, or they were rapidly produced at an epoch when 

 the hairs and scales had not yet taken a specialized form, and I think 

 generic value may safely be accorded them. I am inclined to believe 

 that Peridniiiiia and Ageronia should be considered as one and the 

 same genus. My mounts of P. ainpliinome might easily be confused 

 with Dr. Reverdin's mounts of A. febrna as published in No. 5 of the 

 present volume. T esteem then theitjurtina, hispitlla and niiraij might 

 very well be placed in a genus of their own on the sole evidence of this 

 peculiar and interesting auxiliary genital organ, but when we further 

 take into consideration the Papilio-shaped valva, no doubt can subsist 

 as to the generic separation of these butterflies from all other so-called 

 Epinephele. I have made some twenty mounts each of jurtina and of 

 hispidla, and am inclined to believe that the valve is not exactly the 

 same in the southern var. as in the species ; the valve of hispidla is 

 blunter and more squared oft' in almost every case. As for niirati, of 

 which, for want of material, I have only made two mounts, it has a 

 still squarer and stouter valve than hispitlla. I should deduce that it 

 is a specialized island form of the southern var. 



The second group consists of ida and pasipha'e, very distinct from 

 one another in both valva and uncus, still near enough to justify the 

 supposition of a not too distant common origin; the uncus, narrowing 

 at the point of insertion of the brachia, then broadening, then 

 strangled again and finally tapering oft" slowly, is very similar to that 

 of jurtina. The valvar, however, are of an absolutely difterent class. 

 Those of ida resemble the blade of a clasp knife, or rather, thanks to 

 the regular row of teeth, a broad- bladed saw in a clasp knife. I have 

 before me 30 mounts of ida, they are absolutely constant in form. 



