ARCT1A. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
caia. 
ulahcnsis. 
americana. 
opulent a. 
326 
From the Rocky Mountains to the west as far as California, in Wyoming and Colorado in some parts common. 
One of the most beautiful North American Arctiids. The form guttata is much rarer. 
3. Genus: Arctia Schnk. 
As to this genus we refer to Vol. II, p. 97. In America only one species occurs, caia L., distributed 
over the whole northern temperate zone. 
A. caia L. America homes 4 or 5 forms of this most variable species: utahensis H. Ediv. (= auri- 
pennis Btlr.) (42 a), with yellow hindwings like the form wiskotti Stgr. described from Eastern Asia., but slightly 
deviating from transmontana Neum. <b Dyar, and americana Harr. (42 a) with red hindwings like the European 
caia, but at the shoulders with white lateral stripes of the thorax. Thereby it resembles the Japanese phaeosoma, 
Btlr. (Vol. II, t. 18 b), but it is much smaller than this very large form, and the forewings are much more exten¬ 
sively brown, the broad white bands of the forewings of phaeosoma are narrow and thereby the brown areas 
more coherent. Certainly not all the North American specimens are so small and dark as the figured example, 
and in Alasca there occurs a form (opulenta H. Edw.) in which the white of the forewings is much intenser than 
in typical americana. Also in the east caia proceeds very far to the north, and there still remains a difference 
in size compared with the large Japanese with light and glaring bands, by which these two forms are easily discer¬ 
nible. Still more closely allied than to phaeosoma, americana is to the form orientalis Mr. (Vol. X, t. 24 i), but 
the latter has a quite differently marked abdomen, being broadly banded black from the 3rd ring, so that only 
the margins of the rings appear to be narrowly bordered with red, whereas americana shows a quite red dorsum 
of the abdomen with shortened black transverse bands. — The larva seems not to differ from the European. 
The species, however, is apparently in North America, although it is distributed over the whole northern United 
States, considerably rarer than on the eastern hemisphere, where it is, according to Grae see’s account, in some 
parts of the Amur District immensely common *). 
VI. Phaegopterinae. 
Most of the numerous (1060) species reckoned hereto exhibit a shape bearing a proportion to the general 
Heterocera- type about like that of the Ithomiini to the usual shape of the day-butterflies. In the Itliomiini **) 
(being generally known by the name of Neotropidae) we have noticed a slenderness of the hind body distantly 
recalling the shape of a dragon-fly, together with very long extended forewings and small round hindwings. 
Nearly in the same way we might characterize the Phaegopterini exhibiting the abdomen, though often not 
slender, but always extended, and another analogy is exhibited by the often uncommonly long antennae and 
legs. In Opharus superha, for instance, the antennae attain a length of 2y 3 cm, the length of the forewings being 
only 4 cm, whereas in the Arctiini having been dealt with above the antennae scarcely ever surpass the middle 
of the costa; similar conditions are met with in the Phaegopterina Calidota gigas and in other species. 
This resemblance of the shape to the Ithomiini might supply a good preparation to mimetic disguises, 
b u t in the present group we do not notice anywhere resemblances to the Ithomiini being allied in the shape. 
The Phaegopterinae are undoubtedly well protected. Some have extremely brilliant, magnificent colours, such 
as the Belemnia, sparkling like precious stones, and beside glittering metallic colours they exhibit yet glaring 
scarlet or orange bands. By their mostly very long and strong proboscis, the insects are able to delight in 
sucking from flowers, and they are not only without any frightening colours, but also mostly without 
colours resembling the soil, bark and leaves, which might be considered as an adaptation to the surroun¬ 
dings. The group, on the whole, shows little marking, except some genera (Automolis, Idalus, Hyperthaema etc.) 
showing a great variety of colours increased by spots, bands or stripes. 
Another homology of the Phaegopterinae with the Ithomiinae consists in the same forms being frequently 
repeated in the different and more remote genera. In the same way as we see there e. g. the peculiar colouring 
of Velamysta pardalis Scdv. repeated in Dismenitis theudelinda Hew., or as we recognize in Hymenitis quinta 
Stgr. an image of Napeogenes hypaea Stgr., lihomia dimidiata Stgr., Velamysta anomala Stgr., Episcada paradoxa 
Stgr. etc., we also meet with repetitions in the Phaegopterinae-, particularly species of the genus Halisidota 
recur also in other genera (Agoraea, Elysius, Ammalo etc.), mostly in a somewhat different size. We receive 
* .Most astounding is the enormous fecundity of this butterfly; Lyle (Entomologist 43. p. 249) reports that a 
captured caia-? deposited 1300 eggs, and that hereafter yet 150 eggs were found in its abdomen, thus together 1450, not 
counting the eggs which had been probably deposited, before it was taken. 
** Comp. Vol. V, t. 32—11. 
