THE ENTOMOLOGIST 



Vol. XXXIII.l JANUARY, 1900. [No. 440. 



ON A NEW GENUS OF LYCMNIDM HITHERTO 

 CONFOUNDED WITH CATOCHRYSOPS. 



By A. G. Butler, Ph.D. 



Whilst re-arranging the Museum collection of Lyccenidcs of 

 the genus Catochrysops (type C. strabo) , my attention was called 

 to the fact that, apart from the tailed or tailless character 

 of the species, which appears in that genus only to have a 

 specific value, many of the forms are separable from the type 

 and its congeners by having smooth eyes, those of typical 

 Catochrysops being hairy. 



I am well aware that, in his recent ' Catalogue of Rhopalo- 

 cera of the Ethiopian Region,' my friend Prof. Aurivillius 

 regards Catochrysops and many other genera as mere sections or 

 groups of one huge genus — Cupido. I fail, however, to see why 

 characters, which in other portions of the Rhopalocera are 

 generally regarded as of generic value — such as the absence of 

 a vein in the primaries, the partial anastomosis of certain veins, 

 or the absence of hair on the eyes — should be ignored in the 

 present family. The question as to whether secondary sexual 

 characters should be used for the separation of genera is one 

 which does not concern the present case ; personally, I see no 

 profit in calling groups, based upon well-defined male characters, 

 sections or subgenera ; it appears to me to be far better to regard 

 them as genera. But to refuse constant structural characters 

 common to both sexes and accompanied by even slight differ- 

 ences of form or pattern, seems to me to be unscientific and 

 retrograde. 



EucHRYSOPS, gen. nov. 



Primaries somewhat less acuminate than in Catochrysops ; 

 secondaries invariably tailed, with similarly placed ocelloid 



ENTOM. — JANUABY, 1900, B 



