NYMPHALID^. 45 



Family I.— NYMPHALID^. 



Nyriiphaliclce, Swainson, "Phil. Mag., Ser. II, vol. i. p. 187: March 



1827." 

 Suspensi (excl. Lihytliides), Boiscl, Sp. Gen. Lep., i. pp. 162 and 164 



(1836). 

 Nymphalidce and Satyridce, Swains., Hist, and ISTat. Arrangem. Ins., pp. 90 



and 93 (1840). 

 Heliconiidce and Nymphalidce, Westw., Intr. Mod. Class. Ins., ii. pp. 347 



(1840). 

 Danaidce, Agero7iidce, Heliconidce, Acneidoe, Nymplidlidce, MorphidcB, 



Brassolidce, Satyridce, and Eurytelidce, Doubl. and Westw., Gen. 



Diurn. Lep (1846-52). 

 Nymphalidce, Bates, Journ. Ent., i86r, p. 220; 1864, p. 176. 



Imago. — First pair of legs in both sexes much smaller and more 

 slender than the others, and too short to be used in walking or 

 clinging : in the male usually much more reduced than in the female, 

 and with the tarsus devoid of terminal claws, not jointed, or even 

 (rarely) wanting altogether ; in the female with the tarsus five-jointed 

 (the fifth joint sometimes scarcely perceptible), but without terminal 

 claws. 



Larva. — Cylindrical : often set with spines generally ; or some- 

 what rugose, with spines on the head ; or tomentose, with the tail 

 bifid ; or smooth, with a few pairs of flexible tentacles. 



Pupa. — Suspended vertically by the tail only. 



Throughout this great Family, which embraces six Sub-Families, 

 223 genera, and more than 4000 known species, amid very great 

 diversity of structure generally, one distinctive character only, viz., 

 the greater or less atrophy of the fore-legs in both sexes, prevails 

 without exception. Functionally impotent in every member of the 

 group, these limbs are most reduced in the Sub-Families Danaince 

 and Satyrinm, the extreme in the former being reached in the South- 

 American genus Sais — the male of which, as Doubleday records,^ 

 has the fore-legs only about one-sixteenth of the length of the middle 

 and hind-legs — and in the latter in the South-American genus 

 Lymanopoda and the Old-World genus Ypthima? In two of the 

 cases referred to, besides the very small size of the fore-legs, both 

 tibia and tarsus are aborted, being represented by a small knob, 

 and in Ypthima even the femur is merged in the small appendao-e 

 which alone represents the limb beyond the coxa. The same legs in 

 the female are in these genera far more complete, but still very small, 

 and in many of the Satyrinm they are but little more developed than 

 in the male. 



As indicated in the tabular view of the Sub-Order Rhopalocera 



1 Gen. Diurn. Lep., i. p. 132. 



- A species of this genus, Y. Astcropc, Klug, is a widely distributed native of South 

 Africa. 



