124 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 



rarely sub caudate or concave. The species are all tropical 

 or sub-tropical, and are most abundant in the Indian and 

 Austro-Malayan Regions, though the first two genera we have 

 to notice are peculiar to Tropical America, and are distin- 

 guished from the others by the strongly dentated hind-wings, 

 with a short tail in the middle of the hind-margin. 



Victorina steneks (Linn.) is remarkable for its superfi- 

 cial resemblance in colour to Metamorpha dido of Linnaeus, 

 though the green is more broken into blotches on the fore- 

 wings, and the cell is not filled up with green. The shorter 

 fore-wings, strongly dentated hind-wings, and the black and 

 tawny markings between the green blotches on the under side 

 will readily distinguish it. Like M. dido, it is common 

 throughout Tropical America, and Bates writes : " It fre- 

 quents open sunny places, such as deserted plantations and 

 the borders of woods." 



The species of Amphircnc, Doubleday, differ from Victorina 

 in their shorter and broader wings, and still more in their 

 colour. They are brown, with a white band across the wings, 

 which is oblique on the fore-wings and sub-marginal on the 

 hind-wings ; in V. superba, Bates, from Guatemala, the band is 

 edged with blue ; and in V. epaphus (Latr.), the type of the 

 genus, the apical region of the fore-wings is tawny. The 

 smallest species of the genus, V. sulpitia (Cramer), found in 

 Guiana, is brown, with a broad transverse white band, inter- 

 rupted below the costa of the fore-wings ; it resembles a species 

 of Adelpha, Hiibner, or Pyrrhagyra^ Hiibner, in appearance, 

 in the neighbourhood of which Victorina (which also formerly 

 included Amphirene] has been placed by some writers. This 

 species only measures about two inches and a half across the 

 wings ; the other species of the group measure nearly four 

 inches in expanse. 



The species of Hypolimnas, Hiibner, are most numerous in 



