HELICONIA I. 



I wrote Mr. Bates, whose experience of eleven years on tiie Amazon might 

 have brought this habit in one or more species of Hehconi(h\! to his notice. But 

 he informs me tliat he had observed nothing of the kind ; and otlier naturahst 

 travelers of whom I liave made inquiry reply to the same effect. It is to be 

 sui)posed however that the hal»it is generic, and that it will hereafter be ob- 

 served in many species. 



Althouo-h the cause of this assemblino- of the male butterflies al)out the female 

 chrysalids is sexual, yet inciilentally the latter must be protected thereby from 

 attacks of enemies. No one who has not visited the tropics can conceive the peril 

 to which such objects are exposed, in the innumerable throng of spiders, ants, 

 predacious insects of a thousand species, birds, and animals of other sorts. Dr. 

 Wittfeld has many times reported aggravating losses which liave befallen him ; 

 but I know of my own experience, for I formerly spent a year on the Amazon, 

 that the active enemies of any chrysalis are thousands to one under the equator 

 as compared even with Florida. The butterflies themselves may be protected by 

 their obnoxious smell or taste, and the chrysalis might prove just as obnoxious 

 after it was .seized. But the mischief would be done when that iiappened, and 

 the female imago wounded or destroyed. The color of the chrysalis is not sutfi- 

 ciently marked for its protection, as is the case with the butterfly. It may, in 

 a measure, defend itself by wriggling about, and by the squeaking noise spoken 

 of. but when the shell is softening and the imago is most sensitive to injury from 

 anv rough attack, it could protect it.self by neither of these expedients. It is 

 just then that the males gather about it. and effectively, if unwittingly, guard it 

 till the danger is past, and the new buttertly comes forth. In most of the in- 

 stances observed by Dr. Wittfeld, the females emerging were crippled Ijv the 

 premature assaults of the males, and if this were always the case, protection of 

 the chrysalis would be purchased at a dear rate to the species. But we may 

 assume that this does not generally happen, as the Heliconidae so abound. 



In Charitonia we have a species interesting from its affiliations, its beauty, 

 habits, and peculiarities, and all the more as it is tlie only representative of its 

 kind in our fauna. 



