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structural features of the imago. This is better than Distant’s artificial divisions 
but there is plainly an open field here for investigation, and one which there is 
apparently no need for great delay in occupying, since (excepting the egg) the 
early stages of Lycaeninz appear to offer less service to the systematist than in 
any other group of butterflies. 
What will surprise one in this volume, is the very considerable addition to 
our knowledge of the early stages of the Lycaenine, for excepting the Hesperides 
this group is in general the least known of butterflies. Yet something is 
recorded of no less than thirty-four genera, much of it new, and in many a good 
deal of interesting history is related. This is a great improvement on the 
preceding volumes. One particular case, that of the pomegranate butterflies, whose 
history was briefly and partially given by Westwood, seems valuable enough 
to reprint for the benefit of American readers ; and another, Curetis thetis, may 
well be mentioned here :—“ The twelfth segment [of the larva] bears two most 
extraordinary structures, which consist of two diverging, cylindrical, rigid pillars, 
arising from the subdorsal region and of a pale green color. When the insect 
is touched or alarmed, from each pillar is everted a deep maroon tentacle as long 
as the rigid pillar, bearing at its end long parti-coloured hairs, the basal third of 
each hair being black, the upper two-thirds white. The maroon tentacle with 
its long hairs spread out like a circular fan or rosette is whirled round with great 
rapidity in a plane parallel to the body, its use being almost certainly to frighten 
away its enemies, as this larva, as far as I am aware, is not attended by protecting 
ants and lacks the honey-gland on the eleventh segment present in so many 
lyczenid larvee which are affected by ants.” 
Ants have been found attendant upon half a dozen genera, and in many 
cases they have been identified by Dr. A. Forel, of Switzerland. At least a dozen 
species are concerned, and they are about equally divided between the Formicide 
and Myrmicide. 
Spalgis, it appears, is another instance of a carnivorous lycenid comparable 
to our Feniseca, the larva associating with and feeding upon the “ mealy bug” 
of the planters, a species of Dactylopius. De Nicéville in no way favours 
Edwards's belief that Feniseca belongs to the Lemoniine, and adds nothing, as 
we had hoped he might be able to do, to Holland’s suggestions that Liphyra, too, 
might be carnivorous, though he points out that the two genera differ in their 
perfect state in the number of subcostal nervules, and are therefore not so closely 
allied as Dr. Holland thought. 
The seasonal dimorphism of many Indian Lyczenide is well brought out, the 
dry and wet season taking the place of our spring and summer ; indeed, it occurs 
in no less than eighteen genera, and this will be a revelation to many, and seems 
to bid fair to renovate the study of tropical butterflies. But while in India 
proper “the seasonal forms seem to be chiefly restricted to two, a wet anda 
dry,” in the Himalayan district of Sikkim “the dry season form which occurs 
at the end of the year differs somewhat from the dry season form which occurs 
in the spring, so that with regard to some species there may be said to be three 
forms—a spring, a wet season, and a winter form.” Sexual dimorphism on the 
contrary is very rare among tropical Lycenide, de Nicéville stating that he 
does not know positively of any case, though he suspects it in a species of 
Zephyrus. On the authority of Doherty (a native of Cincinnati by the way, 
working most industriously in the east), he credits half a dozen or more species 
as mimicking others of the same or neighboring groups of Lycznide. Much 
attention is also paid to the secondary sexual characteristics so far as their gross 
appearances are concerned, and they are noted in no less than nineteen genera. 
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