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XXXII. Contributions to on Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley. Lkpidopteu.v : 

 IIelicoxid.e. Hi/ Hexhy AValteu Bates, Esq. (Communicated by the Secretary.) * 



Read November 21st, hsGl. 



" Die wissenschaftliche rntersuchung der Natur strebt in den Einzelhciten das Aligemcine zu erkcnncn, urn endlicli 

 dein Gruudc allcr Dinge niiher zu koinincn. Fiir diese Art UntcTsuchungen, die immer das Ziel der N'aturforschung 

 scin sollte, bietet nohl keine Thicrclasse so reichen Stoff als die Insecten." — Karl Ernst ran Baer, Address on ihe 

 Opening of the Russian Entomological Society, St. Petersl)urg, May 18()0. 



1 HE family llcticoniihe was established by ^Ir. E. Duul)leday in 1817, in D(jubleday 

 and Ilewitson's 'Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera.' It was founded on a uuml)er of 

 Butterflies, remarkable for the elongated shape of their wings, and peculiar (with the 

 exception of one genus, IIa)na(/r//a,s, wliieli the author placed j)rovisi()iiaUy in the family, 

 op. cit. p. 98) to the intertropical and subtropical zones of America. Many of them had 

 been described l)y the older authors under Heliconia, Media nil is-, and several other 

 ill-delined genera. They had been previously (in 183G) united in a lrii)e, Heliconides, 

 by Dr. Boisduval in his ' iSpecies General des Lcpidopteres ;' but this comjjrehended also 

 the group Acrceiche, which Dou])leday excluded from the family. Linuajus treated them 

 as a s(!ction of tlie genus I'(ipilio, under the name oi Ueliconii. The nearest allies of the 

 Ilelieunida- are the ^Icrwidai ]\\^i mentioned and tlie Danayhe: all are distinguished 

 from th(^ true Nyiiiphalidie by the discoidal cell of the hind wings being always closed 

 by jicrfect tubular uervules. Mr. Doubleday, placing more reliance on the shape of the 

 antemue and the al)doniinal border of the hind wings than on the far uKn'e important 

 character above named, was led to exclude the genus Encides from the J'amily : this 

 rendered the definition of the two groups very dillicult, if not impossil)le, Encides having 

 the wing-cells closed in tlie same way as the lleliconidce. Excepting that I re-admit 

 Eueides, and exclude Eamadri/as, which does not enter into the series of the American 

 Eel icon idee, the family will be treated of in the present memoir as defined in the work 

 above quoted. 



The position of the Eelieonidcc in the order Lepidoptera may Ije luuhn'stood when I 

 state that in a natural system tin; group would stand at the head of the whole series of 

 families of which the order is ctmiposed. At least, this should be its place according to 

 the view now taken of the order by many systematists, who arrange the families of 

 Ithopalocera, or Butterflies, according to their degree of dissimilarity to the Eeterucci-a, 

 or Moths — in other words, according as their structure shows a lower or a higher stage 

 in an ascending scale of organization. Eor, as the lower families of ^Moths are allied to 

 other orders of insects, tlie further a group recedes from them in structure, the higher is 

 the grade of perfection of tlie Lejiidopterous type which it exhibits. The families show 

 their degree of aflinity to JMotlis by many characters, the jiriiieipal of which is the 



* The materials on which this memoir is founded were collected l)y the author iluring eleven years' research on the 

 banks of tlic .\niazons. 



vol-. XXUI. 3 X 



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