ACR/EA. 139 



The Perfect Insects, as has been already remarked, bear a very close resemblance, in many respects, to the 

 Heliconida?. Like them they frequent the open parts of woods, and even the more shaded parts, where only here and 

 there a ray of sunshine, that has stolen through the dense foliage of the trees, plays on the scanty undergrowth of 

 low shrubs or herbage. Their flight is rather slow and feeble, and the South American species are fond of reposing, 

 in little groups, on spots of moist earth, or by the banks of streams. 



The species of the first section mostly have the basal part of the wings opaque, the apical portion transparent or 

 sub-diaphanous; the colour of the opaque parts is generally some shade of red. Below, all the wings are spotted with 

 more or less quadrate or rounded black spots. Acroea Andromache has the wings diaphanous to the base, the outer 

 margin of the posterior wings being opaque. The sexes do not differ materially in colour. 



Some of the species of the second section offer great sexual differences of colour, the males having broad discoidal 

 fulvous markings on a fuscous ground, which are replaced in the female by white marks, more or less similar in form. 

 From the resemblance of some species of this genus to certain Diadems, there has arisen great confusion in the 

 nomenclature. In the Banksian Cabinet, the species marked P. Gea by Fabricius is the Acrsea Gea of the following 

 list of species. Beside it is a specimen of the P. Hirce of Drury, to whose figure Fabricius, in the Entomologia 

 Systematica, refers as a synonyme of his P. Gea. This insect is a Diadema, the male of Linne's P. Euryta. Notwith- 

 standing Clerck's accurate figure, Linne's insect has been confounded by subsequent writers with the females of two 

 species of the present genus, which have actually been figured by Cramer as the male and female of one species 

 under the name of P. Euryta. Nothing can more clearly show the necessity of attending to minute characters than 

 these errors, all of which might have been avoided by a very slight attention to the structure of the wings, and of 

 the claws of the middle and posterior feet, and to the sexual characters as indicated by the anterior tarsi. 



The species of the third section have the anterior wings fuscous above, sometimes marked on the inner margin with 

 fulvous or red ; the posterior wings mostly traversed by a band of the same colour, and the outer margin often has a 

 series of fulvous dots. Below, the colours are paler, and the base of the posterior wings is always marked with 

 numerous black spots, a character, in fact, common to all the Old World species. In some species the wings are 

 slightly diaphanous. 



The prevalent colouring of the fourth section is fulvous, the outer margin bordered with black ; the base and disc 

 spotted with the same colour. The black border of the posterior wings is often marked with a series of fulvous or 

 pale spots. 



The only species of the fifth or purely Asiatic section yet known is of a pale fulvous or yellowish hue, the nervures 

 and nervules, and the outer margin, more or less broadly fuscous, the latter with a series of pale spots ; the disc of the 

 autcrior wings with from one to five black spots. 



The sixth or American section offers two distinct types of colouring, one of which much resembles that of the 

 preceding section, though the posterior wings are sometimes entirely black above. In all the species of this group 

 the posterior wings below have the nervules and the folds between them of a deeper colour than the rest of the wing ; 

 which is also the case in Acraja Hylonome, a species in some respects more resembling Acra;a Ozomene and 

 Acraa Nelea. These two remarkable insects have the upper surface black richly glossed, with the base of the 

 posterior wings below yellowish in both species, and that of the anterior wings in the former marked above with a 

 crimson, below with a yellow, spot. 



The most interesting character offered by this genus is the abdominal plate or pouch of the females, which I have 

 observed in species of all the sections, but not constantly, even on females of the same species. Probably this appen- 

 dage is deciduous, as it certainly is in Parnassius. The form varies in the different species ; it is most developed in 

 the species of the first section, which most resemble Parnassius. The combination of this character with a structure 

 of the claws otherwise peculiar to Parnassius and its immediate allies is well worthy of attention. 



The Geographical Range of this genus extends over the whole Torrid Zone, except, perhaps, the Polynesian 

 Islands, and the southern sub-tropical parts of both the Old and New Worlds : but Africa is decidedly its metropolis ; 

 for thirty-five species are already described from that continent and its islands, and many more arc known though 

 undescribed. Here they exactly supply the place of the Heliconid-.e in the New World. Australia has one species, 

 of an African type. Asia has two species; one of African character, the other peculiar to that continent and its 

 islands. America has eight described species, and several undescribed, all differing in form and colour from any Old 

 World group. 



July, 1 8 hs. j> i> 2 



