468 



Family XIV. LYC^NID^. 



Lyc^nid^ and Eumeid^ E. DouUeday. 

 Lycenides and Eumenides Boisduval. 

 PoLYOMMATiDiE Swaitison, olim. 

 Erycinid^ p. Swainson, Cab. Cycl. 

 Vermiform Stieps Ilorsfield. 



Insects of small size. Body generally comparatively slender. 

 Head moderate-sized, often with a small tuft of hairs at the base of the antennas. 

 Eyes often hirsute. 

 Antennce generally shorter than half the length of the costa of the fore wings, often ringed with white, and 



terminated by an elongated distinct club. 

 Labial Palpi rather elongate ; terminal joint slender, horizontal, nearly naked. 

 Wings often marked beneath with ocellated spots. 

 Wings. Fore Wings with two or three branches only to the postcostal vein. Discoidal cell generally narrow, owing 

 to the distance between the costal and postcostal veins ; closed over the back when at rest. 

 Hind Wings with the outer margin often produced into one or more slender tails near the anal angle. Anal 

 margin scarcely forming a groove for the reception of the abdomen. Precostal vein apparently wanting; dis- 

 coidal cell closed by very slender disco-cellular veins. 

 Legs. Fore Legs evidently smaller in proportion than the rest, nearly alike in size and shape in the two sexes ; not 

 brush-like in the males, but furnished with a long exarticulate tarsus, liaving several curved booklets at the 

 tip, distinct from the ungues. Fore legs of the female with the tarsus articulated like the hind legs. 

 Hind Legs slender, scaly. Hind tibia with only one pair of spurs, sometimes very minute. Ungues minute, 

 scarcely exserted. 



Catebpillar sliort, broad, flattened, usually naked, resembling a wood-louse; head very minute; occa- 

 sionally finely hairy, or with the surface wrinkled. 



Chrysalis short, thick, obtuse at each end; attached by the tail, and girt by a silk thread across the middle 

 of the body. 



This is a very extensive family of small, but generally extrenielj' beautiful, butterflies, the European representatives of which are 

 known by the names of " Blues," " Co]ipors," and " llair-strcaks ; " the two former from the jirevailing colour of the upper surface, 

 and the latter from the peculiar slender lines on the under surface, of the wings of the varinus species: but many of the exotic species 

 far outstrip their European brethren in the brilliancy of their colours. Many of them are ra|iid in their flight, sailing over the tops of 

 oaks or other trees, upon which they have passed their preparatory states ; others are, however, slower in their movements, flying over 

 low grass and herbage. They are distinguished by the apparent identity of the fore tarsi in the two sexes. When, however, those of the 

 males are denuded of their scales, it is discovered that they consist only of a single exarticulate joint, without regular ungues at the 

 extremity, thus diftering from the Erycinida^, in which the minute legs of the males are generally brush-like, and clothed with very 

 long hairs. 



The transformations of many of the European species have been figurc<l by Iliiljner, Boisduval, and Godart. Those of various North 

 American species are represented by Abbot and Smith, and also by Boisduval and Leconte, in their works upon the Lcpidoptera of the 

 United States; whilst we arc indebted to Dr. Ilorsfield for the knowledge of the preparatory states of numerous Javanese species; the 

 Jarvic of which vary consi<lerably in their form ; some exhibiting a much slighter resemblance to wood-lice than others. Some are very 

 rough on the upper surface of the body ; and that of Thecla Xenophon has several rows of fascicles of short hairs. It is chiefly upon 

 the leaves of plants and trees that they feed: but a beautiful Indian si)ecics (Thecla Isocrates) resides within the pomegranate in the 

 caterpillar state, several (seven or eight) being found in one fruit; in which, after consuming the interior, they assume the chrysalis state, 

 each having first gnawed a hdle through the rind of the fruit for the cscaiie of the future butterfly, and carefully attached the footstalk 

 to the branch by a coating of silk to prevent its falling, as descriljed in my paper on this species in the Trans. Entomaluyical Socicti/, 

 vol. ii. 



The species of this family are very numerous, there being jirobably as many as six or seven hundred in our collections ; the different groups, 

 however, seem to be consideralily rcstrictcil in their gcogra|ihical range: the small blues, our Lyc;en;c, are, for tiie most part European ; 

 a few species only occurring in North America, India, and New Holland. 'Hit y are, on the contrary, nearly if not entirely unknown 



