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IIELICOPIS GNIDUS. 
Caterpillar thickly clothed with soft hairs, the chry- 
salis suspended by the tail, and having a hand round 
the middle. 
The best known and most common species of this 
genus is II. Cupido , which is rather smaller than 
H. Gnidus. The former is commonly named the 
Golden-spot, and the latter the Silver-spot Butterfly. 
The wings of H. Gnidus, in the male, are white on 
both sides, with a slight tinge of yellow at the base, 
and the outer margin black. At the hinder extre- 
mity of the secondary wings there is a row T of narrow 
white marks, which is double at the anal angle ; 
tails black on both sides, the two longest ones tipped 
with white. The upper wings beneath have a white 
line dividing the black border behind the middle ; 
and the under pair are ornamented with twenty-one 
silvery spots, three of which at either extremity arc 
elongated and placed on a white ground, while the 
rest are insulated and on a ferruginous ground ; all 
of them edged with black. The female is larger 
than the sex just described, and differs in having a 
larger fulvous space at the base of the wings, and in 
having it bounded externally on the under side of 
the upper pair by a wide black patch ; the greater 
part of the surface of the hinder wings is black, and 
the posterior row of white crescents is simple : body 
white, the thorax yellow; antennas black, ringed 
with white. 
The caterpillar is white, and clothed with long 
hairs of the same colour ; the head yellow, sur- 
mounted by a tuft of red hairs. It feeds on the 
