ERYCINIDAE. By Dr. A. Sbitz. 621 



not to influence the marking and colouring. In the greatest part of Tropical America the dry and rainy periods 

 are on the whole not so decidedly contrasting each other as in India and Africa, and also in other American 

 families of butterflies, the variation explained as seasonal dimorphism will probably prove to be the effect 

 of other influences. 



We know rather little of the particulars in the life of the Erycinidae. We are struck by a far greater 

 conformity in biological respect than we ought to suppose owing to the manifold exterior of the single genera 

 and species of the family. We have already mentioned the lassitude in flying, as well as the habit of settling 

 down on the under surface of the leaves with their wings spread like the Geometrids. I was particularly struck 

 by the pose of the antennae being often stretched parallel forward, not laterally divergent, as for instance in 

 the Nymphalidae, Papilio etc. ; they are mostly long, very thin and without a distinct club by what the said 

 pose becomes particularly conspicuous. The species pretending to be dead on being seized (as for instance 

 Stalachtis) press the parallel placed antennae beneath the abdomen and hold them together with the legs. The 

 parallel position of the antennae seems to be usual not only in flying about, but also when they are at rest 

 under the leaves. They then sometimes stand out beyond the rim of the leaf and seem in some way to 

 serve the hidden animal for finding out what is going on above the leaf. Fassl has observed that the bait spread 

 on the upper smrface of the leaf was not only noticed by the butterfly, but was also sucked. by the butterfly 

 sitting under the leaf, by extending its antennae and sucker round the rim of the leaf. 



Quite a number of species of Erycinidae coiae to the bait; others seem chiefly to absorb water, and 

 numerous others go also on flowers. The Lasaia, Tharops, Stalachtis, Emesis even most frequently visit blossoms, 

 and the small Charis are able to bring their predilection for the honey of blossoms very well in accord with 

 their lassitude in flying by remaining continually sitting on the sucked flowers. Ch. zama and theodora, as well 

 as argyrodines which belong to the most common Erycinidae, sit fast like a dark centre in large, yellow com- 

 positae, so that one may sometimes take them away with the poison-glass, and they seem to inhabit permanently 

 such large compositae, as some Cetoniids do with us. I sometimes found on roads almost all the blossoms occu- 

 pied by small Charis of which, hoM^ever, only one was sitting on each blossom. I was struck, however, by the 

 fact that those Erycinidae visiting blossoms and swarming like the other day-butterflies from one flower to 

 another mostly belonged to those, not numerous groups of Erycinidae which possess an exceptionally well 

 developed flying-power, such &s Emesis mandane, Tharops menander, Lasaia meris; they are also uncommonly far 

 distributed and inhabit the greatest part of the South American Continent without being divided into the 

 subordinate races distinguishable by colonies, which have been rather copiously denominated in more unwieldy 

 species. 



While in other groups the life-history has aided us in our judgment, we are pretty much in the dark 

 with respect to the earlier stages of the Erycinidae. We know the larvae of little more than a dozen of species 

 and we can state only the one fact from this insufficient knowledge that the Erycininae are indeed a natural 

 group of butterflies, in spite of the divergent shapes of the butterflies belonging here. The reason for oru- igno- 

 rance of the larvae is that they are not only rare, but that they also seem to live hidden. As to the food-plant 

 the group is apparently distributed over almost the whole vegetable kingdom, and we find the larvae on fruit- 

 trees (sepotUl-plums, America-apricots) as well as on parasitic plants (Viscum, Loranthus), on high-standing 

 cultivated plants (Cassia, Cocoa) and on creeping plants. Only of the monocotyledons there is no species known 

 yet. It seems that the larvae of some species keep hidden in leaf -cases at least during day-time; and if this 

 be not the case, they surely sit, like the butterflies they produce, on the under surface of the leaves. Certainly 

 they are most difficult to discover. 



The eggs are semiglobular, something like a cake, with distinct punctiform impressions being especially 

 deep in the vertical region. 



The larvae are partly more cylindrical, partly more crookbacked like the wood-lice, alwaj's with frae 

 soft hairs which are sometimes short, but very dense; the colour is sometimes green, but sometimes also very 

 conspicuously miniate or bluish-green or also snow-white, in the latter case sometimes -na'apped in a soft, white, 

 easily separable pubescence. 



Of the few cases in which the larvae are known to us there are hardly any general descriptions traceable, 

 but in the Eurygoninae and Erycininae one finds a peculiar organ the functions of which have not yet been 

 cleared up and which seems to be of almost the same structure in larvae of distantly separated genera. These 

 are hornlike or cuneiform protuberances at the neck surrounding sometimes the head radiatiformly {Stalacfitis), 

 sometimes standing at the sides of it in the shape of tufts (Theope). As they are sometimes coloured in a 

 glaring red and also pass over to the pupa {Helico^ns), it is to be supposed that they are protecting organs. In 

 Euselaria they stand out high at the sides of the head in the shape of spines, like the horns of a bull, while 

 in Nymphidium they seclude the head from the body like a fence. Beside this formation, the larvae of Erycinidae 

 exhibit yet an ant-organ by which they approximate the Lycaenids and which is also at the same spot at the 

 back of the abdomen or in the anal region and has occassionally been the cause of strange alterations in the 

 shape of the anal end of the larva. 



