﻿vi BUTTERFLIES LYCAENIDAE — PIERIDAE 357 



and scale-Insects. The pupae are, like the larvae, of short 

 inflated form. By a remarkable coincidence, the pupae of two 

 species bear a considerable resemblance to the heads of monkeys, 

 or mummies. The Lycaenid pupa is usually extremely consoli- 

 dated, destitute of movement, and is supported — in addition to 

 the attachment by the cremaster — by a silk thread girdling the 

 middle. There are exceptions to these rules, and according to 

 Mr. Eobson the pupa of Tajnria eliaeus hangs free, suspended 

 from a leaf, and can move the body at the spot where the 

 abdominal segments meet the wing-cases in the dorsal line. 1 



Fam. 4. Pieridae. — The six legs well developed, and similar 

 in. the sexes; there is no pad on the front tibia. The claws of all 

 the feet are bifid, or toothed, and there is an empodium. There 

 are upwards of 1000 species of Pieridae already known. Al- 

 though several taxonomists treat the Pieridae and Papilionidae 

 as only subdivisions of one family, yet they appear to be quite 

 distinct, and the relationships of the former to be rather with 

 Lycaenidae. In Pieridae, white, yellow, and red are the pre- 

 dominant colours, though there is much black also. It has 

 recently been ascertained that the yellow and red pigments, as 

 well as the white, are uric acid or derivatives therefrom.' 2 The 

 physiology of this peculiarity has not yet been elucidated, so 

 that we do not know whether it may be connected with some 

 state of the Malpighian vessels during metamorphosis. 



Our Garden-White, Brimstone, Clouded-yellows and Orange-tip 

 butterflies belong to this family ; as does also the South American 

 genus formerly called Leptalis. This generic name, which is 

 much mentioned in literature owing to the resemblance of the 

 species of the genus to Heliconiides, has now disappeared : Leptalis 

 having been divided into various genera, while the name itself 

 is now considered merely a synonym of Dismorphia. 



The African Insect, Pseudopontia paradoxa, has nearly trans- 

 parent wings, no club to the antennae, a remarkably small cell on 

 the wing, and an arrangement of the nervules not found in any 

 other butterfly; there being only ten nervules at the periphery of 

 the front wing, and both upper and lower radial nervules uniting 

 with the posterior branch of the subcostal. It has been treated 

 as a moth by several entomologists. Aurivillius considers that it 



1 J. Bombay Soc- ix. 1895, pp. 338-341. 



2 Hopkins, Phil. Trans. 186 B, 1895, p. 601. 



