South-African Butterflies, Vol. 2: A Monograph of the Extra-Tropical Species (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from South-African Butterflies, Vol. 2: A Monograph of the Extra-Tropical Species

Imago. - First pair of legs small and slender; in the much aborted, the tarsus being without articulations or terminal claws; in the$ longer, the tarsus fully developed and with terminal claws.

Larva. - Of ordinary elongate form, or rather short and subonisciform, usually more or less pubescent; second segment sometimes bearing dorsally two erect spines.

Pupa. - Suspended vertically or obliquely by the tail only, or horizontally by the tail and a silken girdle.

The only constant characters apparently prevailing throughout this extensive Family (containing 69 genera and about 900 species) are those afforded by the fore-legs, which differ so remarkably in the sexes. These organs are in the female, besides the complete development of the tarsi, sometimes twice as large as in the male. Other features characteristic of these butterflies are the usually very small and slender palpi often scarcely noticeable from above; the three-branched subcostal nervure of the fore-wings; the slenderness of the body; the smoothness of the middle and hind legs, and the small size of their terminal claws; and the thin and fragile structure of the wings; but all these characters, as Mr. H.W. Bates remarks in his Catalogue of the Enjeinidoi (Jonrn. Linn. Soc. Lond., IX. ZooL, p.367, 1868), are liable to many exceptions. Though amazingly varied in form, colouring, and pattern, the insects of this group are all of small size, the largest of them (Skdachiis and Sosjrifa) being less than 2 inches in expanse of wings, the great majority of much smaller stature, and many (such as 3 Iese7ie, Calydna, Panics, Antcros) among the smallest known butterflies.

Mr. Bates, who paid special attention to them in the Amazons Valley, describes loc. cit.) the habits of the Ericinida as very varied.

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