424 
PERICOPINAE. General Topics. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
also invariably without any hair-pencils, scent-organs or vesicular swellings, we mostly notice intense colours 
in plain markings of bands or spots. They are without any protective colours adapting them to the background, 
but they frequently exhibit large transparent or also quite hyaline areas. Their motley appearance, which 
is mostly not confined to the wings, but also comprises the abdomen which is often vermilion or orange, with 
light spots or white bands, is another proof of their belonging to the Arctiicls, in as much as it can mostly only 
be regarded as a premonitory shield, not as a mimetic or other secondary mark. 
The marking is mostly also like in the Arctiicls. Forewing of. a dark ground-colour, with spots or bands 
of glaring colours, hindwing red or yellow with a dark marginal band. In the marking there are most peculiar 
parallels, particularly the remarkable consistency of large and small forms that are little allied to each other. 
Thus, for instance, Ephestris melaxantha (61 b) which is common near Rio cle Janeiro looks exactly like the 
gigantic image of Cyllopoda dichroa being very common at the same place; Eucyane bicolora (61 c) which, near 
Santos in South Brazil, sometimes flies in day-time round the ramified branches of the trees at the skirts of 
the forests, is the entire image of an enlarged Phaloesia syma (65 e); Eucyane celadon (61 d) seems to be a very 
large Phal. rica (65 f); in Euc. (delta (61c) the colouring of the smaller Calodesynia melanchroia (61 a) is repeated, 
and so on. 
The marking of the individual species is generally not very constant in the Pericopinae. In dealing 
with the badly or little flying butterflies of the neotropical region ( [Erycinidae , Ithomiinae) we pointed out 
(Vol. V, p. 116 and 619) that the specimens of a certain geographical point are mostly consistent even in the 
minutest details of the colouring and marking, but that already an adjoining habitat, being often but few days’ 
marches distant, shows small, though just as constant variations of its inhabitants, so that we might speak 
of subordinate races. This is not the case with the Pericopinae which, being very migratory, are 
never isolated in such colonies. Their occurrence in their patriae is by no means so local, the distribution of 
their species neither so dependent upon special larval food nor upon the landscapes, as we have noticed with 
the Erycinidae where sometimes a habitat of but few hundreds of square metres is inhabited by numerous 
specimens of a species which is nowheres to be met with for many miles round. Thus the individual variability 
of the Pericopinae is very much greater; specimens, having been captured at the same hour and on the same 
lantern, may differ considerably in the width of the bands and the distinctness of the spots, and they may, 
on the other hand, agree with such from remote districts. This seems to have become known to most of the 
describers of forms of Pericopinae, for the synonymy does by far not exhibit the abundancy of dispensable 
names as for instance in the Erycinidae where some species have a dozen or more denominations. 
In the genuine Arctiids we have not been able to discover a distinct mimicry in their exterior, whilst 
in the Pericopinae it is met with in several cases. The colouring of most of the species in spite of its striking 
character is entirely singular. We do not know any imago repeating, not even in the rough, the colouring of 
an Ambryllis boisduvalii (60 b), a Daritis ihetis (60 c), Pericopis sacrifica (64 c). But in quite a number of 
species mimicry is unquestionably present; we have therefore often added to the descriptive text the statement 
of the presumptive model. 
Nevertheless most of the Pericopinae exhibit an internal protection. On taking a Dyschema tiresias 
by the thorax or wings, it at first keeps quiet, folding its wings backwards together and its legs as if it were 
dead. Then, however, with a peculiar, bubbling or groaning noise, it intermittently discharges a yellow 
fluid which covers the head and anterior body of the insect with a dense spume, entirely like the so-called cuckoo- 
spit of the European frog-hopper ( Ptyela spumaria). When the danger is over, the spume melts and its remainders 
are often yet noticeable as reflecting, gelatine-like spots on the wings of the collected specimens. Quite similar 
observations have been stated by Dyar in Composia fidelissima. 
On the whole, however, we must just in the Pericopinae be on our guard of seeing an effect of mimicry 
in every resemblance. We have already mentioned above the frequently very exact consistency of the colouring 
in differently sized Pericopinae or with members of other groups (Cyllopodidae). But also a striking repetition 
of the colouring in lepidoptera, living distantly separated is not at all uncommon; so for instance there exists 
a remarkable consistency between the Brazilian Pericopis transversa (63 f) and the western neotropical Agaristid 
Parothria ecuadorina (Vol. VII, t. 1 c) and the Central American Seirocastnia panamensis (Vol. VII, t. 1 d); 
even in palearctic lepidoptera we often meet with a consistency which is of course accidental, as for instance 
of Caloclesma melanchroia (61 a) with the South Asiatic Chalcosia panthona (Vol. X, t. 3 c) or the Indian Euproctis 
leucospila (Vol. X, t. 44 a). Such accidental phases are, in contradistinction to the biologically established 
ones, called ,,Collective mimicry 14 . 
The mostly rather large species of the Pericopinae are flying with an accelerated speed, but still somewhat 
unwieldily. The cylindrical abdomen which is tightly filled with a great number of very small eggs and which 
