NYMPHALID^. 
45 
Family I.— NYMPHALIDiE. 
Nymphalidcey Swainson, "Phil. Mag., Ser. II. vol. i. p. 187; March, 
1827." 
Suspensi (excl. Lihytliides), Boisd., Sp. Gen. Lep., i. pp. 162 and 164 
(1836). 
Nymplialidoe and Satyridw, Swains., Hist, and Nat. Arrangem. Ins., pp. 90 
and 93 (1840). 
HeliconiidcB and Nymphalidoe, Westw., Intr. Mod. Class. Ins., ii. pp. 347 
(1840). 
Danaidce, Ageronidce, Heliconidce, Acrceidce, Nyinphalidce, Morphidce, 
BrassolidcB, Satyridce, and Eurytelidce, Doubl. and Westw., Gen. 
Diurn. Lep (1846-52). 
Nyinplialidoe^ Bates, Journ. Ent., 1861, p. 220; 1864, p. 176. 
Imago. — First pair of legs in both sexes much smaller and more 
slender than the others, and too short to be used in walking or 
clinging : in the male usually much more reduced than in the female, 
and with the tarsus devoid of terminal claws, not jointed, or even 
(rarely) wanting altogether ; in the female with the tarsus five-jointed 
(the fifth joint sometimes scarcely perceptible), but without terminal 
claws. 
Larva. — Cylindrical : often set with spines generally ; or some- 
what rugose, with spines on the head; or tomentose, with the tail 
bifid ; or smooth, with a few pairs of flexible tentacles. 
Pupa. — Suspended vertically by the tail only. 
Throughout this great Family, which embraces six Sub-Families, 
223 genera, and more than 4000 known species, amid very great 
diversity of structure generally, one distinctive character only, viz., 
the greater or less atrophy of the fore-legs in both sexes, prevails 
without exception. Functionally impotent in every member of the 
group, these limbs are most reduced in the Sub-Families Danaince 
and Satyrincej the extreme in the former being reached in the South- 
American genus Sais — the male of which, as Doubleday records,^ 
has the fore-legs only about one-sixteenth of the length of the middle 
and hind-legs — and in the latter in the South -American genus 
Lymanoimla and the Old-World genus Ypthima? In two of the 
cases referred to, besides the very small size of the fore-legs, both 
tibia and tarsus are aborted, being represented by a small knob, 
and in Ypthima even the femur is merged in the small appendage 
which alone represents the limb beyond the coxa. The same legs in 
the female are in these genera far more complete, but still very small, 
and in many of the Satyrince they are but little more developed than 
in the male. 
As indicated in the tabular view of the Sub-Order Ehopalocera 
^ Gen. Diurn. Le'p., i. p. 132. 
2 A species of this genus, Y. Aster opc, Klug, is a widely distributed native of South 
Africa. 
