Feb., '02] ENtOMOLOGlCAL NEWS. 35 



The Eumaeus Debora. 



By Prof. Luis Murillo, Jalapa, Mexico. 



The beautiful Mexican Lepidopteron, known here under the 

 name of Guinea butterfly, visits us nearly every season even in 

 winter, always in the afternoon and never in the morning. Its 

 flying is apparently very slow and it seems not to rest on any 

 plant. But if in our garden there is a Dioon edule, or Macroza- 

 ntta, or the graceful and worthy Japanese specimen called Cycas 

 revolicta, then it hastens its flying around a plant until it sits 

 on the reverse of its tender leaves. 



The cycads to which the mentioned vegetable belongs are 

 very interesting plants. They form a link between the mono- 

 cotyledones and the dicotyledones. They are like conifers, 

 and they are considered by some botanists as a subdivision of 

 the same family, but their features are so clear that there is 

 no doubt but that the Gymnosperma class can be divided into 

 three families — Cycadea, Coyiifene and Gnetece. 



The flora prior to ours exhibited giantlike specimens of 

 Cycadea, as testified by the 250 species of fossils that have 

 already been classified. 



They appear in the pit-coal terrane represented by the 

 Naggerathia and the Pterophyllum , but they are yet rare in 

 the beginning of the Trias. At the end of the Triassic epoch 

 they are plentiful ; however, in the middle of the Jurassic 

 period is when they reach their largest development. Once 

 these have been classified : in the Rhaetic about fifteen species, 

 in the Lias seventeen, in the Oolite sixty-three, in the Superior 

 Jurassic sixteen, in the Wealdian thirty ; then they diminish 

 sensibly in the Cretaceous, and increase as we ascend in the 

 Tertiary layers. At .present this family has been reduced, and 

 its representatives live preferably in tropical climates. Perhaps 

 the Eumceus debora gue.st of the actual Cycadea is one of the 

 most ancient Lepidoptera. 



Now I just remark that in the same way these plants have 

 a great vitality, for if a trunk of one of them is got without 

 leaves and roots, and left abandoned for one year, it is not a 

 long time before it is covered with tufts of leaves, and in a few 

 years the plant recovers its ancient vigor. So the Eumceus 



