164 MR. J. O. WESTWOOD ON THE LEPIDOPTEROUS 



or generic characters. It appears to me that we have now sufficient materials before us 

 to assume that they possess no higher than specific importance. 



The palpi in C. dcedalus are closely applied to the face, extending upwards to three 

 fourths of the height of the eyes, with their inner margins close together; the apical 

 joint very minute, hut distinct and pointed, but not at all projecting. In C. atymnus 

 they do not reach higher than half the height of the eyes, and the terminal joint is less 

 prominent. 



In C. eudesmia the palpi are longer, and extend as much as one fourth of their length 

 above the top of the eyes ; they are rather obliquely porrected, standing off from the 

 face, and are more slender. In C. decussata they are parallel, and reach to the top of 

 the eyes. In C. JItibneri they only reach to half the height of the eyes, and are much 

 more rugosely squamose. In C. Marcel Serresi they are small, not reaching so high as 

 half the height of the eyes, slender, oblique, pointed, and finely scaled. In C. cochrus 

 they are small, not reaching higher than the epistome, and are thickly squamose, but not 

 rugose. Such is also their structure in the Heliconiiform species, as well as in C. linus 

 and acrceoides. 



The geographical range of the whole of the species of Castnia and its immediate allies 

 extends only to Southern and Central America. 



The transformations of the species of Castnia are of great interest, in connexion with 

 the natural relations of the group and its position with regard to the Rhopalocerous 

 division of the Order in which it was placed by the early systematists. 



Madame Merian, in the 36th plate of her work on the insects of Surinam, gave a set 

 of figures as representing the transformations of Castnia licas. The caterpillar is evi- 

 dently that of one of the larger Morphideous Butterflies ; and the pupa is a chrysalis 

 fastened by its tail to the plant, with its head downwards, resting on the leaf, but with- 

 out any indication of a central girth of silk round the body. Dr. Klug was fortunate, 

 however, to obtain a pupa of C. therapon from the bulb of a Catasetum, sent from 

 Central America to the Royal Gardens at Potsdam. This pupa, figured in the Appendix 

 to his Memoir on the genus Synemon, agrees with those of Sesia, Cossus, Zeuzera, and 

 Mepialus, in its elongated general form and in the transverse rows of reflexed spines 

 with which the segments of the abdomen are furnished. It is, however, to Dr. Philippi, 

 of Santiago, Chile, that we are indebted for a knowledge of the larva of the genus Castnia. 

 In the ' Stettiner entomologische Zeitung ' for 1863, p. 337, and plate iii., he has de- 

 scribed and figured the transformations of C. eudesmia, the larva of which he found in 

 the stem of Pourretia coarctata, one of the Bromeliacese. It is 4^ inches long, and 

 closely resembles the larva of a Prionus or Cossus, with a large prothoracic and short 

 meso- and metathoracic segments, with six thoracic, eight ventral, and two anal feet. It 

 is white and fleshy, with a fulvous-brown-coloured head and extremity of the body. 

 "When full-grown it forms a large cocoon of bits of leaves, twigs, and other vegetable 

 matter, fastened together with silken threads. The pupa is dark chestnut-coloured, with 

 the abdominal segments paler. 



In the Hopeian Collection at Oxford is preserved one of these cocoons (PI. XXVIII. 

 fig. 4) from which I extracted a pupa of C. eudesmia, nearly arrived at the imago state, 



