752 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



If upon examination of the caterpillar just from the egg, this should prove 

 to be unfurnished with ranged chitinous annuli, there would not be a single 

 character drawn from the early stages by which this group could be placed in 

 the Lycaenidae rather than in the Nymphalidae. Even in the imago the 

 only striking characteristic of its structure which allies it with the Lemonii- 

 nae is the sexually heteromorphous character of its fore legs, — a character 

 which by itself should certainly not outweigh the numerous characters 

 from the imago itself, by which it is shown to be a member of the family 

 Nymphalidae. Furthermore, if it were to be placed with the Lemonii- 

 nae in the family Lycaenidae, it would destroy at once the unity of char- 

 acter belonging to this family. It has no place there. 



Transformations and habits. The history of the transformations of 

 the butterflies of this group is imperfectly known. In temperate regions 

 it would appear that there is more than one brood annually ; that the but- 

 terflies, and in some instances belated chrysalids winter ; that in early 

 spring the eggs are laid upon the tender opening leaves of the shoots of 

 Celtis ; that the caterpillar hangs by a thread for descent from its station, 

 but that if alarmed greatly it will drop to the ground without it : that the 

 transformations are passed pretty rapidly and that later broods lay upon the 

 under surface of leaves. The history of the European species has been 

 confused by the fact that another caterpillar has been wrongly referred to 

 it by Duponchel, Godart and Hiibner. 



"This small group," says A. R.. Wallace (Trans, ent. soc. Lond., 1869, 

 334) is of world-wide distribution, and like all such is a frequenter of 

 open grounds, plains, river banks and seashores rather than of the virgin 

 forest. The species are small, and in the activity of their motions resem- 

 ble the lesser Nymphalinae." JViceville says (Butt. Ind., ii : 299) of the 

 Indian species: "I have almost exclusively found them near Avater. 

 Major Marshall informs me that he has more usually seen them in forest 

 glades." Our own species is said to be a frequenter of roadsides. 



Distribution. No other subfamily of butterflies is so poverty-stricken 

 in numbers, scarcely a dozen species being known, and only two or three 

 very closely related genera. This is the more striking from the fact, 

 already alluded to, of their almost world-wide distribution, for the butter- 

 flies of this group will be found on every continent ; the Old World types 

 are distinct from those of the New, but in all parts of the world they are 

 confined to the tropics and the adjacent countries ; the metropolis of the 

 subfamily appears to be the archipelagos and borders of continents lying 

 between India and New Caledonia, but species also occur in the Mauri- 

 tius, western Africa and on the shores of the Mediterranean ; in the New 

 World they are found exclusively in the eastern part of the continent and 

 in the archipelagos lying between the equator and 5" North Latitude. One 

 species has been taken on one or two occasions in New England. 



