Lizars sc.
1. 2. Helicopis Gnidus.
3. Erycina Octavius. Surinam.
HELICOPIS GNIDUS[36].
PLATE XXIV. Figs. 1 and 2, Fem.
Hesperia Gnidus, Fabr.—Pap. Endymion, Cramer, Pl. 224, C, D, (Male,) E, F, (Fem).—Erycina Gnidus, Godart; Stoll’s Supp. Pl. 4, fig. 5, A, (Cater), 5, B, (Chrysalis).
The genus Helicopis was proposed by Fabricius in his Systema Glossatarum, and he refers to the species above mentioned as one of its typical forms. Although its characters are sufficiently distinctive, it was long confounded with other groups to which it has little relation. It belongs to that section of the diurnal lepidoptera in which the caterpillars are short and depressed, having some resemblance to an oniscus, whence they are called onisciform. The palpi are rather long and slender, and the terminal joint is nearly naked or free from scales. In Helicopis the antennæ terminate in a slightly curved club: the anterior legs are much shorter than the others and clothed with hairs; hinder margin of the anterior wings convex and entire, the corresponding margin of the posterior with six linear tails, the central one much longer than the rest; discoidal cell of the posterior wings open behind; claws very minute. Caterpillar thickly clothed with soft hairs, the chrysalis suspended by the tail, and having a band round the middle.
The best known and most common species of this genus is H. Cupido, which is rather smaller than H. Gnidus. The former is commonly named the Golden-spot, and the latter the Silver-spot Butterfly. The wings of H. Gnidus, in the male, are white on both sides, with a slight tinge of yellow at the base, and the outer margin black. At the hinder extremity of the secondary wings there is a row of narrow white marks, which is double at the anal angle; tails black on both sides, the two longest ones tipped with white. The upper wings beneath have a white line dividing the black border behind the middle, and the under pair are ornamented with twenty-one silvery spots, three of which at either extremity are elongated and placed on a white ground, while the rest are insulated and on a ferruginous ground; all of them edged with black. The female is larger than the sex just described, and differs in having a larger fulvous space at the base of the wings, and in having it bounded externally on the under side of the upper pair by a wide black patch; the greater part of the surface of the hinder wings is black, and the posterior row of white crescents is simple: body white, the thorax yellow; antennæ black, ringed with white.
The caterpillar is white, and clothed with long hairs of the same colour; the head yellow, surmounted by a tuft of red hairs. It feeds on the leaves of the passion-flower, and changes into a brown chrysalis, which has a tuft of red hairs at the head and tail.
This species, as well as H. Cupido, is a native of Surinam.
ERYCINA OCTAVIUS.
PLATE XXIV. Fig. 3.
Pap. Octavius, Fabr. Mant.—Pap. Faunus, Fabr. Species.—Pap. Chorineus, Cramer, Pl. 59, fig. A.