JOURNAL OF ENTOMOLOGY. 
No. X.— June, 1864. 
XV.— Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazon Valley.— 
Leprpoprera—Nympuatine. By H. W. Bares. 
Tue group to which the present memoir relates comprises all those 
genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera which agree in having atrophied 
front legs in both sexes, chrysalides suspended freely by the tail, and 
hind-wing cells open, or closed by rudimentary instead of perfect 
tubular nervules. Our Nymphaline, therefore, include the families 
Ageronide, Nymphalide, Eurytelidee, and part of the Morphide of 
Doubleday and Westwood, as defined in Doubleday and Hewitson’s 
‘Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera.’ Although many of the genera, 
especially those tropical Eastern forms allied to Morpho, such as 
Clerome, Amathusia, Discophora, Melanitis, &c., show, by their larvee 
having forked tails, perhaps a nearer relationship to the Brassolide 
and Satyride than to the rest of the Nymphaline, yet the character 
of open hind-wing cells seems to bind together a tolerably natural 
assemblage, and, in default of a better, may be taken as the leading 
diagnostic mark of the group. 
Whether the Nymphaline as here defined should be considered a 
family or subfamily, I think, cannot be decided until the families and 
subfamilies of the whole order have been worked out on a uniform 
plan ; I have preferred, in a Table of the Diurnal Lepidoptera given 
in a former paper published in this Journal (vol. i. p. 219), to treat the 
group as a subfamily, believing that it differs from the allied sub- 
families Heliconine, Danaine, Satyrine, &e., in about the same 
degree as the Pierine differ from the Papilionine; the points of 
distinction in all these cases not seeming to be of so important a 
nature as those existing between the Nymphalide as a whole (in- 
cluding Heliconine, Satyrine, &c.) and the Erycinide, or between 
the families Lyceenide and Papilionide (Papilioninz and Pierine). 
VOL. I. ) 
