44 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



ordinarily of about the length of the femora hut much slenderer than they, 

 and in their natural position placed at a right angle or more than that with 

 tlie femora ; generally clothed with scales, but never fringed with hairs, 

 they are usually armed also with a large number of short spines, ordinarily 

 arranged in longitudinal rows, and particularly upon the sides of the imder 

 surface. They arc almost always armed at the tip l)eneath with a pair of 

 nuicli longer spines or spurs, which arc themselves sometimes minutely 

 scaled ; occasionally in the lowest family the hinder pair is also provided 

 Avith a second central pair of spurs. In the same family also and in the 

 Papilioninae, the fore tibiae are supplied on the middle of the inner surface 

 with a peculiar leaf-like appendage or epiphysis covered with velvety pile.* 

 The tarsi are composed of five joints, the first usually about as long as 

 the other joints combined, and in the Lycaenidae sometimes swollen in the 

 male sex.f With this exception they are usually slightly slenderer than 

 the tibiae, straight, their combined length usually greater than the tibiae, 

 generally scaled upon at least the upper surface, and in their natural posi- 

 tion placed at more than a right angle with the tibiae. Besides being 

 scaled, they are furnished to a greater or less extent, and especially upon 

 the outer edcjes of the under surface, with a considerable number of short 

 spines, the last joint ordinarily to a less extent than the others ; the a})ical 

 spines, or at least those of the outer row, are prolonged beyond the others 

 to a greater or less degree, and take the nature of spurs. The last joint 

 bears appendages of a special nature at its extremity, — the claws, parony- 

 chia and pulvillus. The clatvs are a pair of horny organs such as the name 

 expresses, usually compressed, curving more or less, and tapering to a 

 point ; they are of variable length and divergence, ordinarily simple but 

 sometimes, as in the Picrinae, deeply cleft and bifid. Encircling their base, 

 excepting above, is a fleshy, papillate, tenuous membrane, which very fre- 

 quently becomes excessively developed at the sides and below the claws, 

 and forms the paro7iychta, a sort of secondary claws, or Avhitlows, not so 

 curved as the true claws and merely membranous imitations of them, as it 

 were ; occasionally, as in the Pierinae, the portions beside rather than that 

 below the claw are highly developed, and form broad membranous expansions 

 nearly concealing the claws on a side view ; often the paronychia are en- 

 tirely absent and no trace of any surrounding meml)rane can be discovered. 

 The jyiilvillus is a sort of foot-pad, which seems to be more or less j^edicel- 

 late, and the pedicel to originate from between and in front of the base of the 

 claws, at the centre of the fleshy membi'ane which serves as the foundation 

 of the paronychia ; sometimes the pulvillus seems to be nearly sessile, at 



*Haase (Zeitscbr. enl., n. f., x : 3G) regards fDistant, in mentioning thisctliaracterin the 

 this appendage as the relic of an organ for- Indian genus Gerydus, calls it a " phenomenal 

 merly developed to dean the antennae by pass- character in Rhopalocera" ; it is far more com- 

 ing the latter between its inner side and the nion than would appear from that reference, 

 tibia. though in Gerydus it is unusually pvonn'nent. 



