A MONOGRAPH OF THE GENUS TISIPHONE Hubiici 



By G. A. WATERHOUSE. B.Sc, BE.. FES. 



(Plate i.) 



TISIPHONE Hubner. 



Verzeichniss bekannter Schmetterlinge, p. 60. [816. 



Antennae less than half the length of costa, with clubs long, gradual and very slender. Eyes 

 smooth. Forewing with vein 12 slightly, and median vein and vein ia moderately swollen at 

 base: vein 10 from subcostal close to end of cell: vein 6 longer than vein 5: cell more than half 

 the length of wing. Hindwing with vein 3 anil vein 4 arising well apart: cell about half the length 

 of wing. 



Type: Tisiphone abeona Donovan. Range: Eastern Australia. 



The name Tisiphone was used by Hubner to include eelinde Hubner. pasyphae Esp., and 

 tulbaghia Linn. The first is a synonym of abeona, the second is a European Satyrid and the 

 third an African species which is not a Satyrid. Scudder rightly assigns abeona as the type of 

 Tisiphone, though this name has been often used, even in Seitz' Macrolepidoptera, for a South 

 American genus of Satyrids with type hercyna Hubner, a species which was not originally in- 

 cluded by Hubner under Tisiphone. Kirby in 1902 replaced the name Tisiphone, so far as the 

 South American species was concerned, by Manataria. retaining Tisiphone for abeona: this 

 course Fruhstorfer agrees with in the Indo-Malayan portion of Seitz' Macrolepidoptera. 



The forms of Tisiphone have unfortunately been placed in many and varied genera. But- 

 ler in 1866 described Joanna under Enodia. and in 1868 placed this and abeona under Xenica. 

 Kirby in his Catalogue placed both under Epinefhile. a course which was followed by Miskin 

 in 1876 with rawnsleyi and by Olliff in 1888 with helena. Since my Catalogue (1903) Austral- 

 ian Entomologists have been content to use the genus Tisiphone. 



The butterflies are very local in their habits, never wandering far from their foodplant, and 

 are all feeble fliers. I only recognise two species, abeona (with its five subspecies) and helena, 

 but it is more than likely that helena will yet be connected with abeona when the forms of Tisi- 

 phone inhabiting the coastal ranges between Rockhampton and Cairns are known. 



Though its foodplant is plentiful in Tasmania, Tisiphone is not known from there. It is 

 evidently more recent than such genera as Hetcronympha and Xenica which occur freely in 

 Tasmania. 



TISIPHONE ABEONA Donovan. 



This species has five well marked races, which agree two and two, and a highly variable 

 intermediate race. The races in the south only differ from each other in degree, and the same 

 is true of morrisi and rawnsleyi, but Joanna, occupying an intermediate locality, shows in one 

 district a gradual change from the broad orange banded abeona to the narrow white banded 

 morrisi. 



It is suggested that Tisiphone was originally confined to the main dividing range and be- 

 came differentiated concomitantly with the changes that gave rise to the low drier area through 

 which the Hunter River flows. To the south of this area it developed the orange banded abeona 

 and albifascia and to the north the narrow white banded morrisi and rawnsleyi : subsequently the 

 species was able to reach the coast, and near Port Macquarie we have, in Joanna, the result 

 of the fusion. 



The ovum is nearly spherical, smooth and green, and laid singly on the foodplant. The 

 eggs that produce the spring brood are laid during March and April and even in May, accord- 

 ing to latitude and altitude. Those that produce the autumn brood are laid during September, 

 October, and even as late as November. 



