458 PYRAMEIS. By Dr. A. Sbitz. 



iiito a grey-brown pupa with very strong teeth on the anterior part. The butterfly appears after 3 or 4 weeks 

 and is not jsrotected, but when its powers of fhght are fully developed is not pursued by birds; newly emerged 

 specimens, on the contrary, are eagerly seized upon by insect-eaters. Of over 100 freshly emerged antiopa which 

 I released all, even to the very last one, were caught by a number of Muscicapa grisola. The butterflies 

 do not visit flowers, but drink at bleeding trees and at fruit (on which they always rest head downwards), 

 as well as at wet places in the road. The flight is quiet and graceful. The pupa is nearly always attacked 

 by small ichneumons, which pierce it at the moment when the larval skin is shed, so that only about 10'',j 

 of all the larvae that pupate in the open produce butterflies. 



11. Genus: I*^raiiieis F. 



The species of Pyrameis have not the sharp teeth on the fore wing which characterize the preceding 

 genera. The apex of the forcAving is always spotted with white. The larva has no horns on the head and 

 does not live free and gregariously, but singly and in a 1 abitation formed of leaves drawn together. Most 

 species of the genus are very common ; some, however, are confined to islands, while others are true cosmo- 

 politans. Very striking is the prevalence of the Pyrameis species on certain islands : while on the continents 

 m most places 2 species occur, or at most 3, there are 4 on the Canary Islands and 4 in New Zealand, which 

 is otherwise very poor in butterflies ; on Teneriffe P. vulcanica, atalanta, virgmiensis and cardui, in New Zealand 

 ilea, gonerilla, atalanta and kershatvi. The largest and most beaiitiful sjaecies — P. tameamea — inhabits the 

 remote Sandwich Islands. 



atalanta. P. atalanta L. (= admu'alis Retz.) (94 a and vol. I, pi. 62c). Deep velvety black-brown; forewing with 



black, white-sjjotted apical part, preceded by a scarlet band; hindwing with red, black-dotted marginal band. 

 Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa ; accidentally introduced into New Zealand ; in America everywhere in 

 the United States, from there southwards to Guatemala and on Haiti. North American specimens differ from 

 European in the somewhat narrower band of the forewing, African are about intermediate between the two. 

 • — Larva black-grey, yeUow-brown or red-brown, strongly chequered and marked with yellow; on IJrtica, 

 Boehmeria and hops. The butterfly from July to the autumn, in warmer regions hibernating regularly, in 

 colder only exceptionally. It is especially fond of grajae and beer sugar or the sap of wounded trees. Only rare 

 in the south. 

 cardui. P. cardui L. (= cardueUs Cr.) (vol. I, pi. 62 d). Apex of the forewing similar to that of the preceding 



species, disc fleshy red to tawny, spotted with black. Separate names have been very unnecessarily given, 

 small specimens being called ?«i?ior, pale ones pallens, those with few spots morwato, very strongly spotted elymi; 

 of. vol. I, p. 199 seq. In the Old World everywhere; either common and endemic, or (in the north) amiuaUy 

 as an immigrant, and only temporarily sedentary as a summer brood. In North America it is much rarer 

 than in the Old World and by no means generally distributed ; southwards it certainly extends to Central America ; 

 its reported occurrence in South America is probably due to some mistake ; a form laiown from Australia and 



kershatvi. New Zealand, kershawi McCoy, has been erroneously reported from Central America. In addition to the 

 bhie-pupilled eye-spots on the hindwing above, this form has a^o a quite different under surface, which in 

 the examination of the alleged American kershawi was not taken into account. Except in kershaivi no distinct 

 racial variation at all can be detected ; neither the East Asiatic nor the African specimens allow of separation 

 as subspecies. Cf. Eruhstorfer in vol. IX, p. 525 of the ,, Macro lepidoptera of the World". — The larva is 

 n-on-grey or yellow-brownish, the ground-colour mostly similar to the earth on which the infested thistle stands, 

 with short, strong spines, which urticate somewhat when touched ; marked with light, fine, more or less inter- 

 rupted lines, spots and dots. Chiefly on thistles, the leaves of which it draws together loosely into a tent in which 

 it lives. But it also occurs on nettles; and in certain years iia which it multiplies enormously (as in South Ger- 

 many in the summer of 1879) the huge swarms of larvae sometimes destroy the nettles over wide areas. 

 The migratory instinct of the butterfly is wonderfully developed. The $$ appear sometimes to migrate alone 

 or separated from the (J^J, at least the numerous specimens which I took where the insects had assembled 

 or during then- journeying proved without exception to be 5?- Skertchly in Africa observed the simultaneous 

 emergence of whole swarms of cardui, which directly their wings were dry started on their travels. Merops 

 apiaster has been noticed as a bird that jjreys upon cardui. — cardui appears singly in the spring in migrated 

 (north) or hibernated (south) specimens. The larvae are fuU grown from July to September, the but- 

 terflies appear in the north chiefly in August. The ^^ clash rapidly along on mountain-summits and high roads 

 and love flowers of all sorts; they rest on the ground nearly always with the wings closed, but occasionally 

 with them spread quite wide and play with Pyrameis of then- own or other species, by preference with the ^^ 

 of the atalanta group; on these occasions the a/aianto-like butterfly always rests head downwards on a rock 

 or stone, but cardui sits before it horizontally on the groiuid with its head turned toM-ards its playmate. This 

 relation I have observed between atalanta and cardui in Europe, indica and cardui in Japan, volcanica and 

 cardui on Teneriffe and ilea and kershawi in Australia. — It may be assumed that cardui will spread more widely 

 and become commoner in America. 



