INTRODUCTION. 



49 



oval, angular, curved, gibbous, triangular, with a pyramidical base and point, and 

 a few acute spinous processes near the middle. It is always attached by the tail and 

 perpendicularly suspended, the capital extremity, which is described as " gest'urtzt " 

 or directed downwards, is, with few exceptions, terminated by two points, which 

 are acute, approximated, or diverging. Figures of many of the European forms of 

 this stirps are given by Sepp and others. Stoll has likewise represented various 

 larvae and pupae, which afford a strong confirmation of its uniformity in all parts of 

 the world. 



The perfect insects of this tribe are characterized by the prevalence of a brown 

 colour on the surface of their wings : although they have in temperate regions 

 generally an obscure exterior, many of the tropical species are exquisitely adorned 

 with a gloss of blue, of most transcendent brilliancy, which is spread over the sur- 

 face in various shades of intensity. Many examples of this occur in the insects of 

 the new world, and several of a similar character are likewise contained in the 

 Javanese series. Near the boundary of the third stirps, many individuals are 

 marked with waving lines or bands, which cross the wings from the extremity 

 towards the base. The insects belonging to this stirps are likewise, more than 

 all other diurnal Lepidoptera, ornamented with ocelli, by which nature appears to 

 have supplied in some measure that comparative deficiency in beauty, arising from a 

 want of brilliancy of tint. The ocellated subdivision of this tribe was named by 

 Linnaeus, Nymphales gemmati. The wings have in most cases their greatest 

 diameter from the exterior to the interior margins, by which means their extent is 

 in the direction of the body of the insect, or from the head towards the tail. They 

 are, in many cases, lengthened, in a posterior direction, to a short rounded tail, 

 the lateral margins being either uniform or irregularly indented. In the European 

 species the posterior wings are either simple, or provided with acute or rounded 

 denticulations. 



The palpi of this stirps agree in general character with those of the last, but at 

 the confines of the fifth stirps they are more curved and ascending ; they rise 

 above the head and the third joint is naked and compressed. In the typical species 

 the bristles, arising from the basal and intermediate joints are more lengthened and 

 straggling, the palpi have in consequence a greater appearance of roughness and hairi- 

 ness than in the third stirps, and the tuft, at the termination of the second joint, is 

 greatly developed. The antenna? are filiform, with a slender very gradually incras- 

 sated club, which occupies a large portion of the entire length of this organ. In 

 the typical genera they are of a great length, and exhibit, as has already been 

 pointed out, one of the characteristic peculiarities of this stirps. The anterior feet 

 are small and hairy, with a single tarsal member : they possess the characters from 



h which 



