The insect is a native of Java, Amboina, and other Asiatic islands.
IDEA DAOS.
PLATE X. Fig. 2.
Boisd. Spec. gen. Pl. 24, fig. 3.
This delicate and handsome species is much the smallest, the expansion of the wings not being quite four inches. The ground colour is dusky white, with two remote rows of rounded spots, another at the extremity of the discoidal cell, and several smaller ones on the costa beyond the middle. The abdomen is entirely whitish, the thorax with two connivent black rays on the back and numerous black spots anteriorly: antennæ black.
It is said by Dr. Boisduval, to whose excellent work we are indebted for a knowledge of it, to be a native of Borneo.
Genus HELICONIA.
This beautiful genus is easily recognized by its peculiar aspect, as well as by the more precise characters which it affords. The anterior wings are long, narrow, and entire, and the hinder pair often recede considerably from the abdomen, which is long and slender. The breadth of the insect, therefore, when flying, always greatly exceeds its length. No lepidopterous insect is ever entirely without scales, but in a section of this group, they are so few and minute as to leave the wings perfectly transparent. The palpi rise obviously above the head; the second joint is greatly longer than the first, and has a long tuft of hair near the apex, the terminal one is also a good deal produced. The antennæ are, at least, double the length of the head and thorax, and thicken gradually at the extremity. The anterior tarsus is considerably dilated and slightly dentated; claws simple. Such of the caterpillars as have been described, differ remarkably from each other, and some of them seem to have no analogy with those of the neighbouring groups. This discrepancy, in connexion with some others in the perfect insects, has already led to the separation of certain groups from Heliconia as it was formerly constituted. The larva of H. Euterpe is robust and depressed, with a series of long fleshy lobes on each side; that of H. Calliope short and cylindrical, clothed with slender spines and tufts of hair: these species form the genus Nerias, although they are too dissimilar to be associated with propriety. Others are smooth (H. Psidii), and some are covered with very long white hairs (H. Ricini). In these circumstances, it is not likely that a natural arrangement of this pretty group will be effected until we become better acquainted with the caterpillars, very few of which have hitherto been examined. Chrysalis invariably suspended by the tail only.
These insects, as has been already mentioned, are confined to America and the West India Islands, the larva subsisting on the different kinds of Passifloræ, a beautiful tribe of plants well known to be likewise peculiar to the new world. They seem to be represented in India, as Dr. Horsfield remarks, by the genera Euplœa and Idea.
PLATE 11.