146 



LEPIDOPTERA 



178.—//// 



iiniuti pii- 



the margins of the 

 discocellular nervule. 



Brazil. 



Winers, 



Sub-Fam. 2. Ithomiides. — Differs from. Danatdcs hy thf, 

 female front foot Jiaring a true, though somewhat aMreviate 

 tarsus. Th.e catcrpillers have no long 2^'^^ocesses. There has been 

 considerable difference of opinion as to this division of butter- 

 flies. It is the family Neotropidae of Schatz, the Mechanitidae 

 of Jjerg ; also the " Danaioid Heliconiidae " of several previous 

 writers, except that It ana and Lycorea do not belong here 

 Ijut to Danaides. Godman and Salvin treat it as a group 

 of the Danaid sub -family. The Ithomiides are peculiar to 

 tropical America, where some 20 or 30 genera and about 500 



species have been discovered. 

 There is considerable variety 

 amongst them. Ithomia and 

 Hymenitis are remarkable for the 

 small area of their wings, which 

 bear remarkably few scales, these 

 (jrnaments being in many cases 

 limited to narrow bands along 

 and a mark extending along the 

 Wallace says they prefer the shades of 

 the forest and flit, almost invisible, among the dark foliage. 

 Many of these species have the hind-wings differently veined 

 in the two sexes on the anterior part, in connection with the 

 existence in the male of peculiar fine hairs, placed near tlie 

 costal and subcostal veins. Tithorea and other forms are, how- 

 ever, heavily scaled insects of stronger build, their colours usually 

 being black, tawny-red or brown, yellow, and white. In the 

 sub-fam. Danaides, according to Frit/ Miiller, the male has scent- 

 tufts at tlie extremity of the alxlomen, whereas in Ithomiides 

 analogous structures exist on the upper side of the hind-wing. 

 Ithomiides have various colour-resemblances with members of 

 the Heliconiides and l*ieridae : Tltliorea has colour analogues in 

 Eeliconius, and Itliomia in Dlsmorpliia (formerly called ZejJfalis). 

 Crowds of individuals of certain species of Itltomia. are occasion- 

 ally met with, and mixed with them there are found a small 

 number of examples of Dismorj^hia coloured like themselves. 

 They are placed Ijy Haase in his category of secondary models. 

 Belt states that some Ithomiides are distasteful to monkeys and 

 spiders, but are destroyed by Fossorial Hynienoptera, which use 

 the butterflies as food for their young ; and he also says that 



