LYC^ENID^E. 283- 



have a splendid metallic lustre ; while greens and browns which in 

 certain lights take on a metallic bronze or golden sheen are less 

 common. The wings on the underside in a very large proportion 

 of the genera are protectively coloured with dull shades and 

 mottlings of purplish or reddish brown, ochraceous and dingy 

 white, and as the vast majority of the forms in the Lyccmidce 

 when at rest sit with their wings closed over their backs, their 

 likeness to the dry and withered leaves and twigs in the under- 

 growth and bushes which they affect is often startling. 



The vast number of forms contained in this family has made 

 its partition, if possible, into groups more comprehensive than 

 genera most desirable. Notwithstanding however, considerable 

 diversity in colouring and in a lesser degree in the shape of the 

 wings and the absence or presence of certain modifications of the 

 termen of the hind wing which take the shape of small rounded 

 projections or lobes or more or less attenuated prolongations, the 

 so-called tails, the venation and structure of the Lyccenidce as a 

 whole are very homogeneous, therefore the task of division into 

 natural groups is by no means easy. 



Taking the more modern classifications we have the following : 



In 1884 Mr. "W. L. Distant, in his magnificent work ' Rhopa- 

 locera Malayana,' proposed a division of the established genera 

 into three groups or tribes founded primarily on the presence or 

 absence of a tail or tails to the hind wings. " These ' tails,' 

 however," as pertinently remarked by de Niceville *, " are some- 

 times somewhat uncertain characters as genera occur in which 

 obviously very closely related species differ inter se in the presence 

 or absence of these delicate filamentous appendages ; in fact it 

 would appear that the same species (e. g., Nacaduba ardates and 

 Meyisba malaya) may have both tailed and tailless forms." 



In 1886 (' Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. Iv, 

 p. 110) the late Mr. Doherty proposed to divide the Lyccenidce into 

 six subfamilies on characters founded on the eggs, their shape and 

 sculpture. To these divisions in a subsequent paper (/oc. cit. 

 vol. Iviii, 1888, pp. 409, 410) he adds a seventh, but at the same 

 time suggested the amalgamation of two of the subfamilies 

 diagnosed in his earlier paper. It is obvious that a classification 

 such as this, however scientifically accurate, is useless for all 

 practical purposes both for workers in the field and in museums. 

 To leave on one side the fact that no museum, so far as I know, 

 possesses a collection of the eggs of butterflies, it is of common 

 occurrence that the females of very many forms from which alone 

 eggs might possibly be procured, are exceedingly scarce, while those of 

 others, and that no inconsiderable number, are absolutely unknown. 



Mr. Scudder brought out his ' Butterflies of the Eastern United 

 States and Canada' in 1889, but exhaustive and crammed with 

 information as the work is, it deals with so very limited a fauna 

 that it has not been found possible to successfully adapt the 

 arrangement therein proposed to the much richer fauna repre- 

 sented in British India. 



'Butterflies of India,' vol. iii, p. 13. 



