4 INTRODUCTION. By Dr. A. Seitz. 



and Indo-Chinese butterflies, which result in the appearance of a single species, on all those larger and 

 smaller islands of the Malay Archipelago, in a dress similar, yet with constant diiferences according to the 

 locality. But since the species of the Old World have been spht up into such a large number of races or 

 local varieties, or subspecies, rainy- and dry-season forms, mountain forms and those of the lowlands, the 

 more compact' South America, being for the most part more regularly tempered, without pronounced rainy 

 season, has lost very much of its preeminence. 



Now when one takes into consideration that any buttertly, of whatever species, would be able to 

 tly from Canada as far as to Cape Horn without meeting with any direct, insurmountable obstacle — neither 

 such a sharply defined desert as separates Northern from Central and Southern Africa, nor a sea, as between 

 Australia and India — it is not easy to understand how it is that we find Castnias, Neotropids, Hesperids 

 or Catao-rammas in almost every district of America in distinct forms, mostly unconnected with one another 

 by transitions. In this is manifest a creative energy of unusual richness, such as occurs in no other 

 country to the same extent. 



The lavish endowment of its species with brilliant and conspicuous colours is the second principal 

 characteristic of the American fauna. In India and tropical Africa there are also plenty of gay species, 

 which fact we do not leave out of account; but while the Old World everywhere produces, side by side 

 with the gay and richly ornamented forms, multitudes of others which are tawny, white or neutral brown 

 in colour, many of the open i)laces in the South American woods are alive with the little gold- and silver- 

 marked Syntomids or the azure blue giant butterflies. None of the Old World species can vie with 

 AnjDpfcron aiireipemm in its pure golden under surface, or show such rich adornment of silver as Dione 

 monefa, or such brilliant blue ground colour as Morjjho cypris. And even those colours which have not the 

 metallic or silky gloss are nevertheless extremely elegant and pleasing in their arrangement. Very frequently 

 they consist of bright red, orange or blue-green bands or longitudinal spots on a deep black ground, 

 resulting in more quiet richness and fidness of colour than a stifler, more overloaded scheme of markings. 

 Such crude contrasts of colour as occur in the Papiliu agamemu.on group, in NeHvonigma and in Catphisus, 

 are rare in America. A deeply coloured , though almost always only unicolorous band suffices to make 

 Epicalia, Chlorippe and Prepona, CaUicorc and AdcJpha the most beautiful forms which a refined taste 

 could imagine. 



The phenomenon of mimicry, which was fully discussed in the introduction to the first part of this 

 work, appears in America in an altogether sjiecial and characteristically modified manner. There are many 

 localities in South America, often (juite circumscribed in extent, in which almost all the lepidopterous species 

 that occur in any numbers have one and the same wing-pattern indifferently, whether they be butterflies 

 or moths, whether stoutly-built Swallowtails or weak Pierids or shy Nymphalids. In Colombia one may 

 see flying about a single flowering shrub a number of butterflies all coloured and marked alike, but 

 belonging to four entirely different groups. They are all black with an oblique scarlet band on the 

 forewings. The first is a Fierid (Ferenfe Ifiicodrosi/mc), the second a Heliconius (Hclicoiii/is mc/pdiiiciie), the 

 third a Swallowtail (Papilio entcrphutx) and the fourth (Adelpha itfix) a species of Nymphalid allied to 

 Limenitis. In certain districts of Southern Brazil a yellow band on the forewing and dentated longitudinal 

 stri])es on a brownish yellow ground provide the general scheme, which is followed by Pierids (PcrJu/bris, 

 l)mmorphi(t), Danaids (Li/corca), Helicouians (Hc/icuiiiHs juircaea) and even some moths (Clidoiie). I have 

 elsewhere spoken of a tendency of ceitain districts to produce uniformity in their inhabitants, and 

 although kindred phenomena are not wanting in India, or particularly in Africa, they are far less 

 conspicuous there than in America. 



Just as the present mammalian faima of South America is wanting in gigantic forms, so too its 

 Lepidoptera are for the most part of only medium size. Only in Cnlif/o, Morplio, some Sphingids and the 

 giant Noctuid Tki/sdniu w/rippiuit. do we find great dimensions attained ; there are no actual parallels to the 

 huge Attacna, or to Ornithoptcra with its great uncouth females. And as in size, so also in shape there is 

 not the same tendency towards grotesque, unintelligible forms as one is struck by in many 

 genera of the Old World, such as Lcpiocircns , Serichms, Drifri/n antimachiia, etc. Beyond the development 

 of tails in normally untailed families (Ni/mphalidca', Kri/ciuidne, Hesperidae) there is little that is very strange 

 in the aspect of the American Lepidoptera, 



In addition to these peculiarities of the American fauna, there are some others which are not so 

 difficult to explain. In a large number of districts, es])ecially in South America, there are no regular wet 

 and Avy seasons. In the neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro sudden changes are possible on almost anj- day 

 of the year, and the rainless periods are variable both in their duration and in the time of their arrival. 

 Thus the conditions there — as we have already l)riefly mentioned — do not lend themselves in the same 

 pronounced way to the development of seasonal dimorphism as in many localities of the Old World, where 

 tlie conditions of weather are perfectly regular, the rains and the heat of the sun being confined to certain months. 



Polymorphism also does not seem, in another respect, to be developed to the same degree as in 

 the Old Woild; namely, in its local conditions. Although in Papilin /i/sifliom,, for example, we observe the 

 same conditions which obtain in many Indian species, namely that in ditterent districts it mimics the different 



