244 



LLOYDS NATURAL HISTORY. 



Habits. — These insects affect forest country, frequenting 

 damp, weedy places ; their flight is slow. 



Characteristics. — -The Elymniince almost all mimic insects of 

 other groups — Danaina, Acrceince, or Pierince. They usually 

 expand two or three inches across the wings, and may be 

 distinguished at once from the species which they mimic, by 

 their dentated wings. The prevailing colours are dark brown, 

 white, tawny, yellowish, or greenish ; and the sexes are usually 

 more or less unlike. The African species, Elymnias phegea 

 (Fabricius) and E. bammakoo (Westwood), resemble brown 

 and tawny, or brown and white species of Planema. One of 

 the commonest of the East Indian species is E. tmdularis 

 (Drury), in which the male is dark brown, with a curved row 

 of large sub-marginal bluish spots on the fore-wings, and rusty- 

 red borders to the hind-wings. The female is reddish-tawny, 

 with broad brown borders marked with large white spots, 

 and an oblique white band towards the tip of the fore-wings. 

 It thus becomes one of the numerous mimics of Limnas 

 chrysifpus, Linn. We have figured E cottonis (Hew.) from 

 the Andaman Islands. 



The only other genus of this Sub-family is Dyctis, Boisd. 

 D. agondas (Boisd.) has a dark brown male, and a white, 

 dusky-bordered female. The hind-wings are marked beneath, 

 towards the anal angle, with two or three large oval black 

 spots, within which are blue markings. These are slightly 

 visible on the upper surface also. 



Some authors regard the Elymniince as hardly sufficiently 

 distinct from the Satyrincz to rank as a separate sub-family; 

 but be this as it may, the Elymniince are almost entirely 

 destitute of the ocellated markings which form so conspicuous 

 a feature in nearly all the true Satyrincs, nor are the latter 

 remarkable for mimicry. 



