HESPERIDAE. General Topics by Dr. A. Seitz. 835 



folded together, whilst the hindwing.s are being kept somewhat more flatly, sometimes even almost apj)ressed 

 to the base; hereto belong the greater part of the PainphUini. In drinking from the blossoms, these species 

 frequently keep their wings quite closed (Cari/stus) or also, hke tlie Lycaena, half-opened (Hesperia). 



The position of the wings often influences the colouring, which may be very variable in the Hesperidae. 

 If, as for instance in Canjstus, always only the under surface of the wings is exhibited, it is variegated, on a 

 yellow or azure ground there run stripes or bands of intense colours; if the under surface is kept concealed, 

 as for instance in Pythonidcs, 3Iilanion, Syst'isea etc., the under surface is generally pale witli a blurred marking. 

 Very common are small or large vitreous spots and dots like the pricks of a needle, often arranged in chains, 

 and very characteristic for the different species by their arrangement. Metallic colours, particularly golden 

 green or a brilliant blue, are exhibited by whole genera and comprise both wings and body; there may even 

 occur the strange picture that quite unicolorously black butterflies have metallic green or golden heads. 



Among the colours deep I'ed is represented the least (Hncmnctis snnguinnlis), whilst an ochreous golden 

 yellow occurs most frecpicntly. Still oftener, however, the upper surface of the wings is of a deep black-brown, 

 only interrupted by small vitreous spots and sometimes with a very bright colour in the anal area. There are 

 no leaf-green H e.s peridae known, nor any with a colour like the bark of trees as is exhibited on the under 

 surface of the wings by so nuxny species of day-butterflies, such as Caligo. Vanesm., Polygonia etc. 



Nor do the Hesperids imitate leaves, as it occurs so often in America {Atuien, CalopsiUd, Historis). There 

 are certainly sleeping specimens sometimes found dreaming on a blossom, but the variegated species still seem 

 mostly to creep into their hiding-place for their repose. The robust body, the narrow wings, of which the hind- 

 wings are often very closely folded together, facilitate their creeping under the cover of the vegetation, so that 

 a protective colouring has not been developed. The great resemblance of the members of one genus among 

 each other (compare e. g. t. 162) makes us presume that exterior influences have been of very little formative 

 value and that the different species have only differentiated themselves from one another to such an extent as 

 was necessary for the distinction. The number of enemies seems to be very small for the imagines; I saw birds 

 from the family of the Ixus snatching at them and chasing the numei-ous swarming Hesperids away from the 

 bushes, but these birds did not chase them systematically, as for instance a flycatcher or fire-tail chase the 

 flies, but the noisy and furious pursuit of the Ixus seemed to be more of an amusement and to arise more from 

 the playful bent characteristic in the Ixus jocosus. On the whole, the Hesperidae remained entuely unmolested 

 by the birds; I even was able to observe humming-birds shunning in their visit to flowers those blossoms that 

 were occupied by larger Hesperids such as Eudaiiitis, ThymeJe, Gonmris. 



The Hesperidae seem neither to be particidarly attacked by parasites. I once had more than 50 bags 

 filled with pupae of Calpodes ethlius, which I had gathered in the agricultural park of Palermo near Buenos 

 Ayres; not one specimen supplied a parasite. Also the numerous ])upae of Pythaiiides cerenlit! which I discovered 

 in the course of a year in Brazil, all yielded sound inuigines. If the latter species were very much pursued, it 

 would be incomprehensible that their pui)ae exhibit a bright, snow-white colour and hides so incompletely 

 in the green leaf being scarcely drawn together, that it can immediately be noticed even at greater distances. 



The Hesperids have neither developed any colours and markings which would have to be regarded as 

 the effects of mimicry. Except some very rare resemblances occurring now and again in otherwise non-mimetic 

 genera, all the Hesperids exhibit an exterior found in no other group of butterflies remarkably repeated; and 

 the sporadic cases of (mostly also only very slight) resemblance are so rare that they nuiy very well be explained 

 as casual, particularly since such casual resemblances exist also in such cases where mimicry is out of the question 

 owing to the incongruence of the patriae, as for instance between Bhopalocampta aeschylus *) from West Africa 

 and American Pyrrhopygel **). In a somewhat gi-eater number of cases we find resendilances of Hesperidae 

 with members of the family belonging, however, to another genus. Thus certain Aethilla and Pyrrhopygopsis 

 resemble the Pyrrhopyge to such an extent that one of these genera was denominated after it, In a similar 

 way we find in some Phocides the otherwise very sporadic scheme of colouring of certain Jemndia. But although 

 it is a nonsense to explain a resemblance, as for instance of Limenitis archippns to Dannidu archippiis, by the 

 , .homogeneous effect of homogeneous exterior influences", we still can easily imagine a certain equally working 

 effect of the same exterior forces in the close affinity of similar species. However, the biological condit ons 

 of the Hesperidae, particularly of the neotropical species concerned here are still too little known to give a 

 definite answer to the c^uestion whether there occurs any miiuicry in the Hesperidae. 



As the most destructive enemies to the Hesperid imagines, beside amphibia and reptiles, the .\i'thropoda 

 are to be looked upon. Above all the spiders. Although the Hesperids, owing to their powerful wings, often free 

 themselves from the nets of weak spiders, I often found in Brazil whole galleries of horizontal, somewhat purse- 



*) Comp. Vol. XHI, 1. 7 

 **) Conip. Vol. V, 1. KiL'. 



