OCR Text |
Show 726 MR. A. G. BUTLER ON A N E W GENUS OF LEPIDOPTERA. [Dec. 5, such genera as Appias and Belenois of the Pierinee, in consequence of the fact that their structural distinctions are confined to the male sex. At page 395 of the ** Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera,' in a footnote, Prof. Westwood characterized the typical species of this new genus under the name of Apatura osteria, the type being in the collection of the British Museum ; as it was at that time tbe only example we possessed, and was destitute of an abdomen, no notice was taken in the diagnosis of the form of its anal valves ; and consequently the species has remained without molestation in the genus Apatura up to the present time. In the year 1868 a pair of A. osteria, in fair condition, were presented to the Museum by R. B. Were, Esq., who took them in India; in 1869 a male in good order was obtained from a collection made in Sarawak by Mr. Lowe ; and last year Lieut. Henry Roberts presented a fine pair taken by himself at Singapore. The female of A. osteria is of an olive-brown colour above, the primaries with a macular angulated white band, which becomes obscured by olive-brown in the secondaries ; the discal area beyond this band is semihyaline and whitish in the primaries, and is followed by two obliquely placed subapical white spots and a sub-marginal series of whitish lunules; there is also a white-zoned blind ocellus between the first and second median branches ; the discal area of the secondaries is ochreous brown, crossed by a darker brown macular bar, and followed by a series of broad white-zoned brown spots, bounded externally by brown, the margin pale brown ; a black blind ocellus between the first and second median branches. In the shape of the wings and the colouring of the male this Butterfly reminds one of the smaller African species of the genus Charaxes ; the hind wings, however, possess no trace of the tails so common in that genus. EULACEURA, gen. nov. Nearly allied to Apatura, but differing in its comparatively longer and more graceful anterior, and its shorter and more rounded posterior wings; antennae longer, more slender, the club somewhat compressed laterally ; median nervure of posterior wings longer, and consequently second and third median branches shorter. Abdomen of male with anal valves composed of an upper hoodlike lip, fringed externally with short hair-scales, and sheathing the penis, which is shorter and more spine-shaped than in Apatura, and projects obliquely downwards between two bispinose lateral walls of horny texture, and in shape resembling the open beak of a bird ; the lower lip is formed by the union of two closely fitting horny sheaths, deeply excavated within, and terminating abruptly in two strong, perpendicular, somewhat curved, tapering, homy hooks, about a line and a half in length. Typical species Eulaceiira osteria, Westwood. |