157 



INTRODUCTORY PAPERS ON LEPIDOPTERA. 



By W. F. Kirby. 

 Assistant in the Zoological Department, British Museum. 



No. XVIII. NYMPHALIDiE— NYMPHALIN/E. 

 (Continued from vol. xiv., p. 176.) 



LIMENITIS AND ITS ALLIES. 



The first genus of this group is Lebadea, which contains a lew 

 brown or tawny East Indian species, shaped much like Limenitis, 

 but with the hind margin of the fore wings more decidedly 

 concave. They are more or less distinctly banded or festooned 

 with white, and the tips of the fore wings are always white, a 

 character which will serve to distinguish them from any of the 

 allied genera. They expand rather over two inches. 



We now come to Adelpha, a large tropical American genus, 

 one species of which extends as far north as Califon^ia. The 

 great majority of the species are of moderate size, brown, with a 

 white band crossing the middle of the hind wings, and extending 

 over part, at least, of the fore wings. On the costa of the fore 

 wings is nearly always a fulvous band or blotch, sometimes 

 opposite the end of the white band, and sometimes outside it, and 

 often divided into spots by the veins. Sometimes there is a tawny 

 band on the fore wings, and a white band or no band at all on the 

 hind wings ; and in one or two instances the fore wings are 

 banded with red, and the hind wings are brown. The wings are 

 shaped nearly as in Limenitis, but are generally somewhat 

 dentated, and the fore wings are shorter ; in some few cases the 

 hind wings are tailed, and in others the butterflies closely 

 resemble some of the South American species of Apatura in size, 

 shape, and markings. 



Turning now to the familiar genus Limenitis, we find it 

 numerously represented in the northern hemisphere, but almost 

 totally absent from South America and Africa, being represented 

 in the former country by Adelpka, and in Africa by Aterica, 

 Cymothoe, and other allied genera. Most of the known species of 

 Limenitis are marked with a more or less continuous transverse 

 band of white, and many of them equal or surpass our European 

 L. Populi in size. The ground colour is nearly always brown ; in 

 a few instances, however, the greater part of the wings is 



