448 
GENERAL TOPICS. By Dr. A. Seitz. 
are not adapted to green leaves but to branches of trees or to the bark, for instance in the Tryphax and Gtenolita. 
Dry, rolled-up leaves are also imitated (Scopelodes), and some Limacodid lepidoptera settle on blades or leaves, 
round and enveloped in their wings so that they look like small fruits or withered buds fallen to the ground. 
It is natural that we cannot expect any mimicry in a family so phylogenetically old as the Limacodidae 
undoubtedly are. We are the more surprised to find certain resemblances to colourings exhibited by certain 
lepidoptera! species from other families. I remind the readers of the quite unmistakable consistency of Gasphalia 
nigridorsa (75 b) in West Africa with the Caryatis syntomina (18 a) originating from the same district and having 
hitherto been classified with the Arctiids. The neuration of the latter species, however, is so strangely different 
(cf. p. 112) that we must put aside this case as being utterly unsolved until we are better informed of the true 
relationship of the syntomina. We might add still more examples in which the resemblance with lepidoptera 
of other groups in the African Limacodidae is so great that it cannot be supposed to be accidental. But we must 
bear in mind that many of these resemblances are much more superficial than we are used to find in the 
acknowledged cases of mimicry. So for instance Prolatoia sjostedti (75 e) resembles Aganais borbonica-^ (17 b), 
though very superficially. The difference in size, which is not decisive in cases of mimicry, is no disproof; but 
the basal orange of the fore wing is here situate on the inner margin, in Aganais below the costa; but then the 
two forms live geographically far apart: sjostedti in Cameroon and borbonica in Madagascar; and it is particularly 
Aganais speciosa (17 a) from Cameroon, being the most closely allied to borbonica, which exhibits not the least 
resemblance with the Limacodidae. In the same way we find in the resemblance of Eccopa oculita (75 f) with the 
American Automolis priscilla (Vol. VI, pi. 51 h) that the ecological incongruity excludes every biological 
relationship; the same fact is proved by analogous cases from the African fauna. Thus a great resemblance 
of the African Per. geometrica is shown to American forms of Apantesis, which may be well compared with 
the resemblance of Ancarista laminifer (1 a) to the neotropical Gerrodes minataea (Vol. VII. pi. 1 k). In both 
cases the similar species live in different parts of the world. 
By far more interesting than the imagines are the larvae of the Limacodidae, which we have already 
mentioned. Certainly we know the least about them just from the African fauna, and the details about the 
larvae from the other faunae have been communicated in the Volumes II, VI and X. A common character 
is their hunched shape, the ground-plan of which is frequently a smoothly edged oval, but which often also 
represents fringy contours owing to lateral coniform appendages. In addition there are the clavate morning- 
star shaped cones which usually contain the nettle organ and which are chiefly situate on the anterior and 
posterior parts of the larvae and between which there is often a saddle-shaped marking of the mediodorsum. 
It is an unintelligible fact that old authors, presumably by mistaking the cocoons, have considered such larvae, as 
for instance those of the South-American Sibine- species, to be the larvae of quite different lepidoptera, such as 
Geometrids ( cephise, aterea etc.) or Syntomids ( Agyrta micilia). — This erroneous conjecture about the early 
stages also overthrows the only really doubtful resemblances e. g. between Agyita micilia and Cacostatia 
flaviventralis as referring to Limacodidae. 
The saddle-marking of the Limacodid larvae may be quite uncommonly complicated. So for instance 
in the dangerous Doratijera vulnerans from Australia it forms the yellow warning spot brightly contrasting 
with the dark violet ground, by which I myself was often guarded against the stings of the larvae, when 
incautiously turning over leaves of Eucalyptus in the surroundings of Sydney, whereas I was several times 
stung by the hidden larvae of Parasa consocia in China and of Sibene in Brazil, when I unintentionally came 
in touch with them. Sometimes the nettle-organs themselves are specially provided with glaring colours, e. g. 
in Parasa sky-blue and in some Doratijera scarlet, so that they cannot be excelled in their protective virtue. 
In those cases mentioned above, where the protective shape is substituted by adaptation, the Limacodid 
larva most accurately adapts itself to the place where it lies. Even strangely shaped galls are imitated with 
the very same life-likeness as the usual oviform or broadly elliptical oak-apples by the larva of the European 
Gochliodes. Thereby some species exhibit almost globular larvae, as for instance those of the very common 
Indian Nemeta lohor. Others again, such as the larvae of the nearctic Euclea cippus, resemble those of other 
groups of insects. All, however, as far as they are known, invariably accomodate the pupa (which is always 
provided with separate covers for the limbs) in a very regular cocoon in which the larva reposes for some time 
as a provisional pupa and from which the emerging imago severs a small, quite equally cut lid, in a similar way 
as most of the saw-flies (e. g. Lophyrus pini) do. 
Family: Umaco«li<lae (Cochliopodidae, Cochlidionidae). 
By Dr. Martin Hering. 
By the presence of the third inner-marginal vein (analis, l c) the Limacodidae are distinguished from 
most of the macrolepidopteral families and are thereby to be recognized as a primitive family. In the forewing 
different veins maybe forked with each other, generally the veins 7—9, to which often vein 10 is added; sometimes 
also 2 and 3 are stalked. In some genera vein 11, immediately after its origin, is very convex in front where 
