FAMILY II. LEMONIIDÆ
SUBFAMILY ERYCININÆ (THE METAL-MARKS)
"I wonder what it is that baby dreams. Do memories haunt him of some glad place Butterfly-haunted, halcyon with flowers, Where once, before he found this earth of ours, He walked with glory filling his sweet face?"
Edgar Fawcett.
Butterfly.—Small, the males having four ambulatory feet, the females six, in which respect they resemble the Libytheinæ, from which they may readily be distinguished by the small palpi. There is great variety in the shape and neuration of the wings. The genera of this subfamily have the precostal vein on the extreme inner margin of the wing; in some genera free at its end, and projecting so as to form a short frenulum, as in many genera of the moths. In addition the costal vein sends up a branch at the point from which the precostal is usually emitted. This apparent doubling of the precostal is found in no other group of butterflies, and is a strong diacritical mark by which they may be recognized. They are said to carry their wings expanded when at rest, and frequently alight on the under surface of leaves, in this respect somewhat approaching in their habit the pyralid moths. Many of the species are most gorgeously colored; but those which are found within our region are for the most part not gaily marked. They may be distinguished from the Lycænidæ not only by the peculiar neuration and manner of carrying the wings, but by the relatively longer and more slender antennæ.
[a]Fig. 125.]—Neuration of base of hind wing of the genus Lemonias: PC, precostal vein; PC', second precostal vein.
Early Stages.—Comparatively little is known of these, though in certain respects the larvæ and the chrysalis show a relationship to the Lycænidæ, with which some writers have in fact grouped them, but erroneously, as the writer believes.