2 Mr. H. W. Bates's Notes 



retical notions, I suppose, you do not care about. Tlie neura- 

 tion of the wings in many Mechanites and Ithomice differs in 

 different individuals of the same species; therefore, Mr. Hewit- 

 son should not rely so much upon it.* I have found a good 

 many in cop., and the sexes have always had the closest resem- 

 blance in colour and markings. They are very gregarious in 

 habits. A solitary species of Afechanitis or Ithom'ia in a locality 

 is seldom, or rather never seen: there are always two or more 

 nearly allied species flying together. This is a very strange fact. 

 There are two species of large, brown, elongate-winged Ithomice, 

 something like Thyridia ; one species has one black bar across 

 the wing, the other two. They are always found in company 

 up the Tocantius, up the Tapajos, on the isjands in the Amazon, 

 and again at Ega. Ilhomia vestilla is always accompanied by 



/. S(10. 



H. Melpomone varies in a curious manner. Here, the other 

 day, 1 took a pair in copulation, the female of which had red and 

 black striped hind wings (like many species of the genus). What 

 is very strange in this species is, that in ascending the river, it 

 becomes more liable to vary. It first appears at Santarem, where, 

 in a hundred specimens, you will only find the typical form, 

 namely, a simple crimson belt on the fore wings. In Abydos, in 

 a hundred specimens, perhaps twenty will have the crimson band 

 broken in various ways. In Serpa nearly all the individuals are 

 variations of the typical form. 



I have no doubt they are hybrids {i. e. tlie varieties), and I can 

 almost point out the species with which it hybridates. Strange to 

 say, the hybrids occur in one district and not in another, and one 

 style of hybrid only occurs in one district and not in the others, 

 the species being ec^ually abundant in all the districts. 



Agrias. — I think the most magnificent group of NijmphaUdce in 

 South America. They are very bold, strong, and rapid flyers; 

 not at all like the Catagrammce and Callithece in this respect, but 

 like the Paphice and Preponce. They fly for a short distance with 

 inconceivable rapidity, and then settle on a leaf high up a tree, on 

 a trunk of a tree where sugary sap is oozing, or at filth of some 

 kind on the ground, with their wings erect, and are not very 



* Mr. Hewitson is quite aware that the sexes of the same species of Ithomia 

 sometimes differ in the position of the nervures of the posterior wing ; he has, 

 nevertheless, perfect faith in the different arrangement of the said nervures as a 

 sure guide by which to discriminate closely allied species. — \V. C. H. 



