Publ. 3i. IX. 07. 



Diurna, Butterflies. 



With the exception of the Neotropical Brassolids, all the American butterflies are day-loving insects. 

 Even the dark-coloured Satyrid genera and the colourless Haetera and Ifhomia fly by day, though in the 

 dusky shade of the woods. What was said in the Introduction as to the colouring and the scheme of 

 marking of the Lepidoptera of the New World, is applicable in a si3ecial degree to the colours of the 

 frequently gorgeous butterfly - wings. In spite of the very considerable abundance of true Rhopalocera, 

 they do not in America preponderate over the second group of Diurna, the Grypocera, to such an extent 

 as in the Old World. 



A. Rhopalocera, true Butterflies. 



The ditferences fi'om the Grypocera are given in vol. I, p. 7. The distribution of the Rhopalocera 

 in America extends from Greenland to Cape Horn. In the islands lying to the south of this there do not 

 appear to be any butterflies. These attain in the American genus Morplio, allied to the Satyrids, a high 

 degree of development; among the Nymphalids we find in Agrias evidently modern forms, and among the 

 Ithomiids the most prononced examples of Mimicry. 



Division I: Papilioiiina. 



The Papilionina do not in America attain the same dimensions as in the Old World, for example 

 in the Indo -Austrahan Oniithoptera. The largest American Papilionid is Pap. homerus, an island species. 

 The genus Parnasmc^, rather prominent in the north of the Eastern Hemisphere, is much less so in America. 

 The Pieriils are similar to those of the Old World in their habits, and extend, hke these, far into the north 

 polar region. (Seitz.) 



Family I: Papilionidae, Swallowtails. 



Palpi short, lying close to the head, occasionally long and projecting (Teinopalpus , North-India). 

 Antennae of three types according to the structure of the segments: the fine sensory hairs beneath and 

 laterally almost equally distributed over the proximal part of each segment, or there is a cavity on each 

 side covered with sensorj' hairs (reminding one of the Nymphalids), or there is only one row of such 

 cavities present (reminding one of the Pierids); the upperside scaled or naked. Mesothorax very strongly 

 built, the sternum complete! \' fused with the episternum, the suture (as in the Pierids) outwardly quite 

 wanting. Fore legs fully developed; fore tibia with spur on the underside; claw simple, very rarely cleft 

 as in the Pierids*); paronychium and pulvillus wanting. Cell of both wings closed; in the forewing the 

 second discocellular (between the 1. and 2. radial) the longest, the 2. radial arising from the lower angle of 

 the cell, the 3. discocellular standing in or almost in the prolongation of the median, hence four veins arising 

 from the hinderside of the cell, upper submedian vein often present as a short transverse vein arising from 

 the median near the base, 3. submedian vein short, free, running into the hindmargin ; hindwing with pre- 

 costal vein, and one submedian vein. — Egg I'ound or flattened, without prominent sculptui'ing. — Larva 

 before the first moult with rows of bristle-bearing tubercles, which in the later stages disappear, or are 



*) In one species of Leptocircus. 



