Little Wood-satyr (Cissia eurytus or Neonympha eurytus). Expanse 1½ inches. Eyes not hairy. General color fawn-brown with two eye-spots on upper surface of each front wing and several on each hind wing.
Gemmed Brown (Neonympha gemma). Expanse 1¼ inches. Eyes not hairy. General color mouse-brown with no markings on upper wing surface except a rather indistinct pair or more of spots next the margin of the middle of each hind wing. Under surface indistinctly striped with rusty lines and a few brown and silvery spots on the hind wings directly beneath the spots on the upper surfaces. Occurs in Southern states.
Georgia Satyr (Neonympha phocion). Expanse 1¼ inches. Distinguished from the related species by the four distinct eye-spots on lower surface of each hind wing, these spots being transversely elongated rather than round. Occurs in Southern states.
Carolina Satyr (Cissia sosybius). Expanse 1¼ inches. Distinguished by the row of round eye-spots near outer margins of lower wing surface. Occurs in Southern states.
Family Heliconidae
This is a tropical family with only a single species migrating northward to our Southern states. The butterflies of this group are characterized by having the wings so long and narrow that their length is usually twice as great as their width. The front legs in both sexes are so poorly developed that they are considered a modification approaching the complete dwarfing found in the Brush-footed butterflies.
The Zebra Butterfly
Heliconius Charitonius
While the butterflies of temperate North America show many examples of marvelous beauty and coloring, one must go to the tropics to see the culmination of what nature has done in painting the outstretched membranes of butterfly wings with gorgeous colors. The great butterfly tribes that swarm in tropical forests seldom reach our temperate clime, and even when they do they are likely to show only a suggestion of the splendid size and rich coloring to be seen farther south. The Zebra butterfly (Heliconius charitonius) belongs to one of these tropical tribes. It shows its affinities by its coloring and the curious shape of its wings. In most of our northern butterflies, the wings are about as long as they are wide, but in the tropical family, Heliconidae, they are very much longer than wide. This gives the insect an entirely different look from our common forms so that one recognizes it at once as a stranger within our gates. Indeed, it does not penetrate far into our region, being found commonly only in Florida and one or two other neighboring states, its principal home being in tropical America.
The Zebra butterfly is well named. Across the brownish black wings there runs a series of yellow stripes, three on each front wing and one on each hind wing, with a sub-marginal row of white spots on each of the latter. The under surface is much like the upper, except that the coloring is distinctly paler. It is very variable in size: some specimens may be but two and a half inches across the expanded wings, while others are four inches. (See plate, [page 224].)