358 ACRAEINAE. By Dr. K. Jorpan. 
In this classification scientific criteria are indeed taken as a basis, but the extent of the difference 
between the separate groups of section III is not further taken into consideration, as a further classification 
would not increase the clearness, but rather destroyit. Hence we content ourselves with the above grouping. 
The superficial appearance of the collective family of the Nymphalidae is so multiform that but little 
of any value can be said about them as a whole. They agree in having the eyes large and hemispherical, the 
palpus strong, mostly standing straight out and always extending beyond the head, the antenna quite straight 
and thickened at the end, the proboscis always developed, the collar often well defined, the thorax oval and high, 
the abdomen in the g sometimes very short, in the Q often much thickened, the forewing strong, triangular, 
often angled at the distal margin and very frequently with transverse markings in the cell, the hindwing round, 
often angled, occasionally tailed or lobed. The larvae are as a rule provided with spines, often thick and regular, 
but sometimes reduced, defective, or even entirely suppressed except for points on the head or tail, resulting 
in a chagrin-like granulation of the skin-surface. The pupa is always attached at the cremaster, mostly hanging 
down, but occasionally also placed upright and then usually so disfigured by fantastic appendages that it re- 
sembles a bird-dropping, a gall or some indefinable dried-wp substanze. Sometimes it has points, teeth, 
oceasionally gilded cones, spines, filaments, knobs, tubercles on the dorsum or head, wing-like appendages, etc., 
or it is quite smooth, semitransparent green and resembling small fruits. 
The early stages, which were for the most part still entirely unknown to the earlier systematists, in 
particular DoUBLEDay and Wesrwoop, we have here considered individually, and practically only where these 
yield different results have we deviated from the system of the older authors, always keeping in view the 
aim of our work, which is primarily a practical guide to determination and work of reference, so that, while 
following the more recent investigations of others, it itself initiates as few changes and reforms as possible. 
In their habits the Nymphalids vary as greatly as in their form. We find them as larvae on Dicotyledons 
and (though only rarely) on Monocotyledons, on trees and on herbs, gregarious or quite singly; living free or in 
nests, lively and nimble or sluggish and inert. The butterflies inhabit the earth from the equator to the 
highest latitudes and there is scarcely a remote island on which they are wanting. They ascend in the mountains 
to the highest slopes, bordering on the eternal snow, and penetrate further into the hot deserts of the tropics 
than most other groups of butterflies. They travel over wide tracts of land and enliven every clearing in the woods, 
every river-bank and even fly around rocky crags in the high mountains entirely devoid of vegetation. They 
feed at flowers, but also very commonly prefer the sap of bleeding trees or are attracted by stinking substances 
(rotten fruit, cheese, dung-water) or by alcohol and ether. In temperate regions may hibernate and come out 
from their winter hiding-places in the spring as the earliest insects. But almost without exception they are 
sun-lovers and do not share the habits of many Satyrids or Hesperids in flying exclusively or principally at night. 
They present themselves as an evidently natural though very diversified family of considerable geological 
age, but well adapted and keeping pace with the transformations of their environment. 
I. Subfamily: Acraeinae. 
The Acraeids are a comparatively very small branch of the great Nymphalid stirps and approximate 
rather closely to the Heliconines on one side and to the lowest groups of the Nymphalids proper on the other. 
They can easily be recognized by the palpus, the neuration and the scaling, and the earlier stages have also 
a very characteristic structure. 
Body of the butterfly slender, with tough skeleton; abdomen long, extending beyond the anal angle 
(i. e. the end of the 2nd submedian vein), towards the base rather strongly narrowed. Antenna beneath scale- 
less, longitudinally with 2 broad, deep grooves, which are bounded by 3 very sharp longitudinal keels. Palpus 
slender, either completely clothed with long bristly hairs and only scaled at the sides, or at least on the under- 
side with a stripe of such bristles, between which are placed hardly any scales, the 2nd segment long, distinctly 
bent in S-shape, commonly somewhat inflated, the 3rd very short, often only as long as broad. The palpal 
bristles, as well as the hairs on the breast and legs, distally surrounded with short pointed teeth, so that 
in profile they recall feathers. Forelegs much aborted, bearing a small number of bristles; in the j the fore- 
tarsus consists of 1 to 4 joints and, like the foretibia, varies very much in length in the different species 
or groups and is not even constant within the species. In the 2 the foretarsus is 4-joined, more constant in 
length and structure than in the g, on the underside at the ends of the joints with strong spines and 
tufts of sensory bristles. Foretibia and foretarsus of the ¢ never with such long pencil-like hairs as in the Nym- 
phalids, often almost scaleless, especailly the tarsus. Middle and hindtibiae and tarsi without long hairs and more 
sparsely scaled or not at all, on the underside with stronger, on the upperside with weaker spines or brist- 
les, which are always numerous. Claws with large, broad, obtuse tooth, without pulvillus and free paronychium, 
in all the 99° and in a small number of species also in the g more or less symmetrical, on the contrary in the 
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