834 HESPERIDAE. General Topics by Dr. A. Seitz. 



the other hand even Monocotyledons are visited by them, such as grass, cereals, Liliaceae, bananas, and even 

 palm-trees which are otherwise scarcely uneatable for larvae. Between some plants and the Hesperids visiting 

 them there even seems to prevail sometimes a mutual relation in such a way that the butterflies have also 

 become the fructifiers of those blossoms of plants, the leaves of which are eaten up by their larvae; at least 

 this would make it comprehensible that for instance Calpodes ethlius is provided with an enormously long siphon 

 so as to enable it to visit the deep calyces of the Canna-blossoms, which are otherwise accessible to very few 

 butterflies, and the leaves of which serve their larvae as food. I presume that by similar symbiotic relations 

 the sphinx-like long siphons of other Hesperid genera (Perichares, Gangara etc.) can be explained. 



The larvae are mostly almost bare, i. e. very sparsely covered with downy hairs standing singly, or 

 with very short plush-lLke hair; their colour is frequently green, but often also snow-white or bone-colom-ed, 

 in the larger species frequently speckled or striped like a zebra. The head usually sits on a very much strangu- 

 lated neck; it is mostly downwards broader, tapering off towards the vertex, where it is, however, also some- 

 times notched and thereby of a cordiform shape. Very peculiar is a bristly hairing of the face as it often 

 occurs in the Pyrrhopyginae; in other species the frontal vesicles show dark, eye-shaped dots which, together 

 with a nose-like middle-streak and transverse mouth-marking are apt to recall a human face or that of a monkey. 

 The larvae rarely live in the open, but in feeding they sometimes creep out from the leaf in which they are 

 encased; some also only put out their head in feeding. The case itself consists of a leaf being rolled up at 

 the margins but it may also represent a more or less highly artistic funnel which very often discloses the 

 larva's abode to the collector. The larva, in the tropical forms, grows up rather quickly, but it usvially feeds 

 only at night even in the most day-loving species. For the pupation most of them do not construct a real cocoon, 

 but the transformation takes place rather incompletely protected in a carelessly guarded niche of a leaf, out 

 of which one sees the pupa looking out being often very brightly coloured, frequently snow-white or 

 hoary bluish. 



The pupae entirely have the shape of the body of the imago, so that the broad head and the far sparated 

 eyes can already be recognized. The head frequently exhibits a cone directed forward sometimes prolonged 

 in the shape of a thorn; between the costal margins of the wing-cases, the case for the siphon runs along, which 

 is often so long that it projects beyond the anal end of the pupa like a spike. The pupa likewise sometimes 

 has a marking like a face, i. e. blackish dots on the eyes, sometimes with a dark middle streak. The pupal stage 

 usually lasts for a short time in the tropics, often only a week or little more. The wings very quickly grow 

 stiff after creeping out, so that the imago is able to fly already a few minutes after leaving the pupa. 



As we have already mentioned in Vol. I, p. 329, the main flying time is concentrated upon the hottest 

 months of the year in the temperate districts; only few fly in spring, and these often appear yet in a second 

 generation in inidsummer. In the Northern States most of the Hesperids fly only in one generation from June 

 to August. In the Southern States they are often followed by another generation in autumn, and in Tropical 

 America very many Hesperids in almost the same frequency fly all the year round without any pause; thus, 

 dui'ing a longer spell of dry weather in which the other day-butterflies sometimes disappear nearly altogether, 

 they form the only remaining moment enlivening nature. Almost without exception they eagerly visit flowers 

 some of which have such a great attractive power upon the Hesperids, that they are continually surrounded 

 by whole swarms of them. They very rarely come to the bait ; I never met with them on the sap di'ipJDing from 

 trees, but they often drink water from pools and banks of rivers. They eat diy materials serving them as food 

 by pouring out drops of liquid from the anus on to the base from which they suck then, as Ktjhn proved for 

 Indian and K. Dietze for European Hesperidae. Dietze observed that an Augiades sylvanus dropped more 

 than 200 of such clear small drops on the base to be sucked up (at intervals of about 5 seconds), which it 

 then wholly absorbed again by means of the siphon being bent below the body. Their flight is somewhat .skipping, 

 in floating darts, for which reason they are called ,, skippers" in English. It is a buzzing and mostly impetuously 

 swift flight, so that most of the species are thus scarcely recognizable, let alone to be overtaken. Nevertheless 

 it is easy to capture them, since they are not timid, and not only allow themselves to be approached when drinking 

 from the flowers, but also mostly remain sitting without the least fear when they are on the look-out on the 

 top of a bush or on a twig projecting into the open space. 



The Hesperids have two modes of keeping their wings. One part of the species keeps the wings always 

 spread out flatly, often in such a way that the apical part of the forewing appears as if bent down over the 

 horizontal line; in these species the distal margin is frequently angular, lobate, gnawed out, dentate or lacini- 

 form. The genera, taking up this position, mostly consist of velvety black or deep dark brown species (Eantis, 

 Achlyodes, Antigonus, Sebaldia etc.); they are nearly all confined to the tropics, where they represent the more 

 northern Thanaos and Thorybes. The second group, containing more species, folds the wings together while 

 being at rest, like the day-butterflies do, whereas in the swarming time, while it settles down only temporarily, 

 it keeps the wings in such a waj' that the forewings are turned upward parallel to each other, though not 



DSl 



