LYCAENIDAE. General Topics by Dr. A. Seitz. 743 



Also in the anatomy the Eiimaeus differ considerably from all the other Lycaenidae. The transverse 

 vein of the hindwing, being in the Thecla mostly quite faint, sometimes vanished to scarcely noticeable traces, 

 is so strong that it forms a distinct termination of the discocellular. The first subcostal vein rises separately 

 from the upper radial vein, whereas on the forewing the 3rd and 4 th subcostal veins have a long joint footstalk. 

 Finally, also the female forefeet are better developed than in most of the Thecla, and we may, therefore, see 

 in the Eumaeus a similar transitionary joint to the Erycinidae, as in the Indian Curetis which also deviate in 

 many ways from the Lycaenid tribe. Like in many Erycinidae, we have also in the larvae of Curetis an organ 

 being unexplained in its closer functions, which is not placed at the neck as in the American Erycinidae, but 

 consists of rotatory whirling threads serving perhaps for the same purposes as the neck-organ of the Erycinid 

 larvae, i. e. for protection. 



The eggs of the Lycaenidae are cake- or turban-shaped, varying greatly in height and size, but are 

 mostly conformable in shape. The surface is usually distinctly grained, less divided into areas or cells, the 

 mieropyle often drawn in. 



We as yet know extremely little of the American — particularly South American — Lycaenid larvae. 

 The species belonging here and being for the greatest part of the genus Thecla have presumably mostly tree- 

 larvae, and it is, therefore, not astonishing that hardly an5^hing is known of the early stages which are even 

 at the habitat itself difficult to ascertain. The most we know of the North Americans of many of which already 

 Boisduval and Leconte supplied the life-history (1833). Later on, in the sixties of the last century, particularly 

 Morris and Saunders have acquainted us with many American Lycaenid-larvae. Still later on, W. H. Edwards, 

 ScTTDDER, Packard, Fletcher, Mss MiddletoN and others, published (mostly in the ,, Canadian Entomolo- 

 gist") the life-histories of many species; but it is certainly not even the twentieth part of the American Lycae- 

 nidae with whose ea^rly stages we are familiar. On the whole it follows therefrom that, although the shape of 

 American Lycaenidae seems not to deviate essentially from that of their palearctic representatives, still the 

 habits, particularly the nutrition, are remarkable in different respects. Some Thecla-\&vY&e feed from plants 

 of families that are otherwise not known as the nourishment of Lycaenidae, such as the cotton plant (Gossypium) 

 and the sarsaparilla (Smilax) belonging to the monocotyledons; Thecla niphon lives on conifers on which we 

 do not meet with any Lycaenid-larvae in the Old World. 



Most peculiar, however, is the life-history of Feniseca tarquinius being common in some parts of North 

 America, the larvae of which live on plant-lice. But if Henry Edwards says that this species is the only species 

 among all the North American butterflies that has a carnivorous larva, he is only correct in as much as the 

 other larvae of day-butterflies known from North America are under normal circumstances phytophagans. 

 We know from Carlos Berg that the larva of Pyrameis carye living likewise in North America becomes carni- 

 vorous and even cannibal in Patagonia, at the frontier of the region governed by phanerogamia. By its nutri- 

 tion from plant-lice, the American genus Feniseca forms to a certain degree a parallel with the Indian Gerydini 

 (cf. Vol. IX, p. 804) which have likewise entirely given up being phytophagans. 



The large and brightly metallic-coloured Lycaenidae of America are real children of the sun. As soon 

 as a cloud covers the sun, they disappear, i. e. they slip into the midst of the densest bushes, whereas m the 

 intense sunshine, they cheerfully play round the twig-ends of large trees and the tops of bushes in the very 

 same way as their European allies are used to do. The males then post themselves at the end of a twig projec- 

 ting beyond the skirts of the woods, their heads always turned away from the woods and towards the open 

 space, lying in wait for the females wandering restlessly along the skirts of the woods, until a male accompanies 

 them. At their favourite haunts, being particularly the ends of forest-corners, the turnings of roads or also 

 solitary bushes, we may see, almost invariably in South America, during summer in North America, some 

 Thecla bustling about. On settling down the wings are always tightly closed, only some smaller species some- 

 times open them half, similar to our Lycaena, as for instance the species allied to Th. elongata flying more in 

 the grass than on the bushes. 



Most of the American Lycaenidae do not love flowers, except some blossoms abounding in honey, parti- 

 cularly umbels and tree-blossoms which are often visited by them. Nor do the American Lycaenidae frequentlj- 

 come to the bait, which is the more remarkable since some Thecla, such as Th. ellida and their allies nearly 

 always fly near the trunks of trees the dripping sap of which, as soon as they exhibit luxuriant saccharomyces, 

 exerts a great attraction upon most of the species of butterflies which we know as favourite visitors of the 

 bait, such as Catocalinae, Agrotis etc. It seems, however, as if the Thecla were hunting on the trees more for 

 certain lichens or algae than for the dripping sap, or as if they were swarming in order to discover the other 

 sex; certainly the baiting for Lycaenidae, at least with the means having been used hitherto, is not successful. 



