358 ACRAEINAE. By Dr. K. Jordan. 



In this classification scientific criteria are indeed taken as a basis, but the extent of the difference 

 between the separate groups of section III is not further taken into consideration, as a further classification 

 would not increase the clearness, butrather destroy it. Hence we content ourselves with the above grouping. 



The superficial appearance of the collective family of the Nymphalidae is so multiform that but little 

 of any value can be said about them as a whole. They agree in having tlie eyes large and hemispherical, the 

 palpus strong, mostly standing straight out and always extending beyond the head, the antenna c^uite straight 

 and thickened'at the end, the proboscis always developed, the collar often well defined, the thorax oval and high, 

 the abdomen "in the <S sometimes very short, in the $ often much thickened, the forewing strong, triangular, 

 often angled at the distal margin and very frec^uently with transverse markings in the cell, the hindwing round, 

 often angled, occasionally tailed or lobed. The larvae are as a rule provided with spines, often thick and regular, 

 but sometimes reduced, defective, or even entirely suppressed except for points on the head or tail, resulting 

 in a chagrin-like granulation of the skin-surface. The pupa is always attached at the cremaster, mostly hanging 

 down, but occasionally also placed upright and then usually so disfigured by fantastic appendages that it re- 

 sembles a bird-dropping, a gall or some indefinable dried-up substanze. Sometimes it has points, teeth, 

 occasionally gilded cones, spines, filaments, knobs, tubercles on the dorsum or head, wing-like appendages, etc., 

 or it is quite smooth, semitransparent green and resembhng small fruits. 



The early stages, which were for the most part still entirely unknown to the earlier systematists, in 

 particidar DouBLEDAy and Westwood, we have^here considered individually, and practically only where these 

 yield different results have we deviated from the system of the older authors, always keeping in view the 

 aim of our work, which is primarily a practical^guide to determination and work of reference, so that, while 

 following the more recent investigations of others, it itself initiates as few changes and reforms as possible. 



In their habits the Nymphalids vary as greatly as in their form. We find them as larvae on Dicotyledons 

 and (though only rarely )"on Monocotyledons, on trees and on herbs, gregarious or quite singly; living free or in 

 nests, lively and nimble or sluggish and inert. The butterflies inhabit the earth from the equator to the 

 highest latitudes and there is scarcely a remote island on which they are wanting. They ascend in the mountains 

 to the highest slopes, bordering on the eternal snow, and penetrate further into the hot deserts of the tropics 

 than most other groups of butterflies. They travel over wide tracts of land and enliven every clearing in the woods, 

 every river-bank and even fly around rocky crags in the high mountains entirely devoid of vegetation. They 

 feed at flowers, but also very commonly prefer the sap of bleeding trees or are attracted by stinldng substances 

 (rotten fruit, cheese, dung-water) or by alcohol and ether. In temperate regions may hibernate and come out 

 from their winter hiding-places in the spring as the earliest insects. But almost without exception they are 

 sun-lovers and do not share the habits of many Satyrids orHesperids in flying exclusively or principally at night. 

 They present themselves as an evidently natural though very diversified family of considerable geological 

 age, but well adapted and keeping pace with the transformations of their environment. 



I. Subfamily: Acraeinae. 



The Acraeids are a comparatively very small branch of the great Nymphalid stirps and approximate 

 rather closely to the Heliconines on one side and to the lowest groups of the Nymphalids proper on the other. 

 They can easily be recognized by the palpus, the neuration and the scaling, and the earlier stages have also 

 a very characteristic structure. 



Body of the butterfly slender, with tough skeleton; abdomen long, extending beyond the anal angle 

 (i. e. the end of the 2nd submedian vein), towards the base rather strongly narrowed. Antenna beneath scale- 

 less, longitudinally with 2 broad, deep grooves, which are bounded by 3 very sharp longitudinal keels. Palpus 

 slender, either completely clothed with long bristly hairs and oidy scaled at the sides, or at least on the under- 

 side with a stripe of such bristles, between which are placed hardly any scales, the 2nd segment long, distinctly 

 bent in S-shape, commonly somewhat inflated, the 3rd very short, often only as long as broad. The palpal 

 bristles, as well^as the hairs on the breast and legs, distally surrounded with short pointed teeth, so that 

 in profile they recall feathers. Forelegs much aborted, bearing a small number of bristles; in the (J the fore- 

 tarsus consists of 1 to 4 joints and, like the foretibia, varies very nmch in length in the different species 

 or groups and is not even constant within the species. In the ? the foretarsus is i-joined, more constant in 

 length and structure than in the (^, on the underside at the ends of the joints with strong spines and 

 tufts of sensory bristles. Foretibia and foretarsus of the c? never with such long pencil-like hairs as in the Nym- 

 phalids, often almost scalcless, especailly the tarsus. Middle and hindtibiae and tarsi without long hairs and more 

 sparsely scaled or not at all, on the underside with stronger, on the upperside -with weaker spines or brist- 

 les, which are always numerous. Claws with large, broad, obtuse tooth, without pulvillus and free paronychium, 

 in aU the $$ and in a small number of species also in the ,^ more or less symmetrical, on the contrary in the 



