12 SOUTH- AFEICAN BUTTERFLIES. 



median nervnle (eighteen South-African instances). Fore-legs of <^ 

 rather long, — femur hairy beneath, — tibia scaly, sometimes armed at 

 extremity with a hook or curved spine superiorly, or with a single inferior 

 straight spine, or with a pair of (or more) straight spines, — tarsus rather 

 curved, spinose beneath, terminating in a single curved claw ; — of the 

 1^ similar, but with tibia more rarely armed, and with fully-developed 

 articulated tarsus ; middle and 1iind legs rather short and slender, 

 femora hairy beneath, tibias with short terminal spurs, tarsi very 

 spinose beneath. 



Larva. — Broad and thick, the back very convex, the under side 

 flattened ; head and legs very small. Usually of some shade of 

 green or yellow, marked dorsally with longitudinal and sometimes 

 oblique lateral streaks. 



Pupa. — Broad, thick, rounded, smooth ; anterior extremity some- 

 what narrowed and depressed, blunt. 



(These characters of larva and pupa are derived from the figures 

 given by many authors.) 



This genus, of world-wide distribution, is unmanageably numerous 

 in species, but, as in the similar case of Feqnlio, it seeuis impossible 

 satisfactorily to divide it. In my examination of the forty-seven 

 species known to inhabit South Africa, I have been met with the same 

 failure of distinctive characters in groups and sections that in super- 

 ficial features seem natural ones, which Westwood (ojj». cit.) commented 

 on thirty-four years ago in his general survey of the species then 

 recognised. Thus the presence of a tail on the hind-wings is found to 

 associate forms otherwise so different as Bcetica, Sgharis, and Jobatcs ; 

 the absence of one branch of the subcostal nervure (which only occurs 

 in three species) links to the allied Cissns and Johates so very distinct 

 a congener as Barhercc, while it separates the latter from such a very 

 close ally as Mctophis ; the junction of the first subcostal nervule with 

 the costal nervure (which is found in the European Tiresias, Fischcri, 

 and Alsus) characterises fourteen species obviously pertaining to five 

 different groups ; while naked eyes predominate, no fewer than nine- 

 teen species scattered over four groups have hairy ones ; and the pre- 

 sence of a hook or straight spine, or both of these, or of several spines 

 at the extremity of the tibia of the fore-legs, in one or both sexes, is 

 equally ii-regular and misleading as a key to associate allied forms. 

 The only mode of arrangement available seems to be the unsatisfac- 

 tory one afforded by the colouring and pattern of the under side of 

 the wings, which was adopted by Herrich-Schaffer (op. cit.) in tabulat- 

 ing the European species. 



All the Lycoince are of small size, the largest not measuring two 

 inches across the expanded fore- wings, wdiile the smallest are the most 

 minute of all butterflies, expanding from half to three-quarters of an 

 inch only. Blue of various tints is the predominant colour in the genus, 

 especially in the males ; the females being usually brown or grey shot 



