174 [January, 



ON THE BLUE-BELTED EPICALIM of the FORESTS of the AMAZONS. 

 BY HENET WALTER BATES, F.Z.S. 



Among fclie host of brightly-coloured butterflies which enliven 

 the shades of the vast tree-wilderness of the Amazons, few exceed in 

 beauty the Epicalice. The Epicalice are members of the great family 

 NymplialidoB, and approach nearest to Jjimenitis of any European re- 

 presentative of the group. They rather exceed our Limenitis Sibylla in 

 size ; have rounded wings and slender-clubbed antennae ; and their 

 caterpillars are studded with branched spines, two of which, longer 

 than the rest, proceed from the head. In respect of colours, the twenty 

 species of which the genus is composed may be divided into three 

 groups. The first group comprises species in which both sexes have 

 black wings with blue (sometimes white) belts and spots : the second, 

 those in which the females have belts of yellow spots on a black ground, 

 whilst the males have velvety-black wings with glossy orange belts and 

 spots : the third and last, includes a few handsome forms richly deco- 

 rated with light blue and orange belts on a black ground, the females 

 diifering from the males (in some cases) in wanting the orange belts. 

 It is of two members of this last group that I wish now to speak, 

 with a view to communicating a description of the hitherto unknown 

 female of one of them, and showing how curiously small is the amount 

 of apparent difference which, in some cases, distinguishes two allied 

 species. 



The Epicalice are true forest-dwellers ; that is, unlike the scarlet 

 and blue striped Gatagramm(B, the purple EuniccB, the long-tailed 

 Thnetes, and many other genera of tropical American NympTialidce, they 

 do not issue from the forest on fine days to sport about in open sunny 

 places, but remain all their lives in the shades. They love to glide 

 through the less dense places, where the wilderness has been a little 

 thinned by the uprooting of gigantic trees, or by the destruction of 

 timber by the inhabitants, and settle on leaves where a ray of sunlight 

 penetrates. In flight they are excessively rapid, and show but little of 

 that floating motion which distinguishes Limenitis and many other 

 genera. I have never noticed them to settle on the ground, and very 

 seldom on flowers, their habit being to alight for a few moments on 

 leaves, and imbibe the small quantities of moisture which are sometimes 

 found on them. Some of the species are amongst the commonest of 

 the forest butterflies : it is impossible to go far along any of the narrow 

 pathways without seeing one or more of them, and there seems to be 

 an uninterrupted succession of generations all the year round. 



