4 80UTH-AFKiCAN BUTTEKFLIES. 



Nymplicdincc, but do not present the swollen nervures cliaracteristic of 

 tlie lattei" ; while the perfect tarsi of the fore-legs of the female alto- 

 gether separate them from that group of butterflies. It is very- 

 remarkable, too, to find them sharing with the Danaiiim a slender but 

 distinct internal nervure of the fore-wings anastomosing with the 

 submedian nervure ; and it was probably this character which led Dr. 

 Felder^ to place them between the Danaince and Erycinida:.. The larva, 

 again, is quite unlike that of any group of the Nymphcdidce, and is not 

 like those known among the other Erycinidce, but very closely resembles 

 that of the totally distinct Pierince ; while the pupa, on the contrary, 

 does not differ widely from the Nymphalide type. 



The twelve or thirteen species of this Sub-Family belonging to but 

 one genus — Lihythea — are singularly scattered over all the warmer 

 parts of the globe, except, I believe, the continent of Australia and 

 Polynesia. The type of the genus, L. Celtis, Fuessly, inhabits Southern 

 Europe and Asia Minor ; the Ethiopian Eegion has three species ; 

 India and the Indo-Malayan Islands three ; the Austro-Malayan and 

 Australasian Islands two or three ; two are natives of the United 

 States and the West Indies ; and one is found in Surinam and Brazil. 

 It does not seem improbable that these few and widely-scattered con- 

 geners are but the surviving representatives of what was at some 

 former period a numerous and generally-prevalent group. 



Genus LIBYTHEA. 



Lihythea, Fab., " Illiger's Mag., vi. p. 284 (1807);" Latreille, Encyc. 

 Meth., ix. p. 10 (181 9); Westw., Gen. Diurn. Lap., ii. p. 412 

 (1851). 



Characters those of the Sub-Famil3^ 



There is considerable variation in the different species as regards 

 the length of the palpi, which (as Felder has pointed out) attains its 

 maximum in the American species ; and L. Celtis is the only member 

 of the genus that I have examined which has the antennae so thick and 

 so very gradually incrassate from the base. The form of the hind- 

 wings is also variable, none of the species rivalling Celtis in the strik- 

 ing sinuosity of the costa ; while the hind-margin is in some (the 

 Indian Myrrh a, Godt., and allies) rounded, without special prominence 

 of any particular dentation, — in the European and American species 

 has a moderate projection at the anal angle, and in the African and 

 some other species presents a very decided process at the extremity of 

 the first median nervule. 



The Lihythcoj. are rather below the middle size, and their colouring 

 is mostly rather dull, consisting of a few fulvous or ochreous-yellow and 

 white spots on a dark-brown ground, except in the case of the males of 

 L. Geoffroyi and Antipoda, which have the upper side violet or violet-blue. 



^ Diagnoses Lrpidopterulogica, No. VI. p. 10 (Wien. Entorn. Munatschr., 1862). 



