X. SCENT-SCALES, MALE “ MARACUJA BUTTERFLIES” 657 
of the male “ Maracuja butterflies ” are especially remarkable, since there 
can be scarcely any doubt as to their true significance. 
The “ Maracuja butterflies,” as I call them after the plant on which, 
as is well known, the larvae of all the species live, 1 form a group of closely 
allied species confined to the warmer parts of South America. 2 Their long 
narrow wings give them a look all their own, while their colours— 
generally beautiful, pure, and deep—render them, like Morpho , a real 
ornament to the South American landscape. 
They have been divided into four genera, Heliconius , Entities , Colaenis 
and Bione (Agraulis ), and these genera have hitherto been commonly— 
incomprehensibly one might say, if under the current system of classifica¬ 
tion anything could be so called—placed in two different subfamilies or 
families, the Heliconinae and Nymphalinae . 
Colaenis and Bione— and even Eueides —have been torn away from 
their closest relative Heliconius , and thrown together with Ageronia , with 
Apatura , with Siderone ! Allied in the very closest manner by geographical 
distribution, by the structure of the larva as well as of the imago, even in 
their preferences for certain flowers, 3 they do not appear to approach very 
closely any other genus of diurnal Lepidoptera. Acraea is perhaps nearest, 
its larvae agreeing in all important points with those of the Maracuja 
butterflies. 
In all the male Maracuja butterflies that have been examined there are 
on the upper surface of the hind-wing—near the costal margin and espe¬ 
cially along the costal and subcostal nervures—among the ordinary scales 
certain others of very striking shape, such as I have only seen elsewhere 
in a male “White” of the genus Hesperocharis. The apical margin— 
usually strongly arched—has a dense fringe, which appears as if stuck 
together with some foreign substance. The fringes of a Eueides aliphera , 
which I bred from a pupa and killed in the course of the first day, appeared 
almost clean. The scales, with the exception of a pale border along the 
fringed margin, appeared dull and opaque : their stalk, unlike that of 
ordinary scales, is slender, thin-skinned and flabby, and the socket in 
which it is inserted is much larger than that of other scales—spherical, 
and broadly dark margined, as if it contained some strongly refractive sub¬ 
stance. The shape, as shown in Plate H, Fig. 1 a-e> is somewhat variable. 
1 There have been found here on the “ Maracuja ” (Passifiora) the larvae of 
Heliconius eucrate [narcaea ], Eueides isahella and aliphera , Colaenis julia and dido, 
Dione vanillae and juno. —F.M. 
2 The group extends up to the northern limits of the Neotropical Region, and 
one or two species even enter the United States.—E.B.P. 
3 Poinsettia pulcherrima in my garden was visited last year by numerous species 
of Theda and a few Erycinidae, but only rarely and exceptionally by other diurnal 
Lepidoptera, excepting the Maracuja butterflies, of which almost all the local species 
came regularly and remained constantly near the plants. Only Eueides pavana , 
which I saw but three or four times, and Dione moneta , which I saw but once, were 
wanting.—F.M. 
