196 RHOPALOCERA MALAY AN A. 



warlike intent. This constancy of resort to one individual leaf or twig is very singular and 

 unaccountable : sometimes on my approach to one so situated, it has been alarmed and flown 

 to a considerable distance, but, taking a flight round, it returns to the place ; and presently 

 there is the little thing alighting on the leaf again. The playful pugnacity just noticed seems 

 almost peculiar to the LiicwniJir." * It remains to be seen if these habits are restricted to the 

 western species alone, or whether, as is probable, similar proceedings may not be observed 

 among the Eastern Lyca^nids. 



The family is universally distributed, and wherever butterflies exist it seems that Lyccenidce 

 are found. This particularly applies to the smaller species, which have even been brought 

 from the Arctic Eegions, collected in 81" 45' N.f 



In arranging the genera of this family as found in the Malay Peninsula, I have found 

 it convenient to separate them under the three following proposed Groups, which I think 

 will prove useful, and which I trust — in our present superficial knowledge — are not altogether 

 unnatural : — 



Posterior wings without filamentous tail-like appendages I near the anal angle. - - Cuketaeu. 



„ with minute filamentous or prominent tail-like appendages near the 



anal angle. 



Posterior wings convex, about as broad as long. . . . . . Castalaeia. 



„ more or less elongate, distinctly longer than broad. - - Aphnaeia. 



Group CUEETARIA. 



This proposed division contains some of the most interesting genera found in the whole 

 of the family, having singular and strongly marked structural peculiarities. It is, however, in 

 Tropical and Subtropical Africa that it reaches its maximum in genera, of large and brilliantly 

 coloured species, § whilst in Tropical America it is represented by the genera Euinwus and 

 Trichoiiis, and in Australia by the genus 0<jiiris. It is also extensively, but more modestly, 

 represented throughoiit the whole remaining area of Lyca^nid distribution. It is in this 

 division also that some of the most aberrant forms of the Lyccenidce are found. 



* 'Letters from Alabama,' pp. 144-5. Elsewhere, in the same work fp. 37), the author describes the Theclie as often 

 roturiiin^' after a flight, " like the flycatchers among birds, to the same spot from whence they departed ; a pi'ojecting twig, or 

 tlie topmost leaf of a bush." 



f M'Lachlan, Journ. Linn. Soc, Zool. vol. xiv. p. Ill (1878). As regards local peculiarities of distribution, Mr. S. 

 Scudder, in comparing the "butterfly faunas of Eastern North America and of Europe," found that the "blues" were better 

 represented in Europe by "(38 to 13)," whilst the "hair-streaks" were most abundant in America by " (20 to 10)." — (' Psyche,'' 

 vol. ii. p. 112 (1878J. 



I This may prove to be an uncertain and illusory divisional character, if, as Herman Strecker reports on the North 

 American representatives, "In some species the spring brood is tailless, whilst the summer generation of the same insect 

 is provided with those ornaments" (Lepid. Ehopal. & Heteroc. p. 81 (1874). In such a case, however, the markings of the 

 wings beneath would be similar, and I have not found this to be the case with any of the species now enumerated. Many of 

 the figures here given are deficient in these tail-like appendages owing to their exceedingly fragile nature and their liabihty 

 to mutilation in the process of capture. Lieut. Gervase F. Mathew advises the collector to box all small butterflies alive, and 

 writes, " Abroad, in the tropics, where I have taken and boxed numbers of small LijccenidcB, I have almost invariably found 

 tlieir dehcate caudal appendages as perfect as when first captured" (' Entomologist,' vol. x. p. 38). 



j Amongst these African genera may be enumerated MimacrcEU, Pentila, Liptcna, Phytala, Epitola, Hcwitsonia, 

 and Dcloneura. 



